BEES AND FLOWERS. 



2 49 



naturalists, especially Hildebrand, Hermann Miiller* 

 Delpino, and, above all, Charles Darwin,t have put 

 the whole question in a new light, and reduced 

 isolated facts to a law, which extends beyond the range 

 of botany. It is now shown that conspicuous flowers, 

 generally speaking, are especially modelled to prevent, 

 or at least impede, fertilisation, by the pollen they 

 themselves produce ; while marvellous contrivances are 

 exhibited to secure pollen from some other plant or 

 flower of the same species ; for, amongst those that 

 have been studied in reference to this matter, there 

 exists but a very inconsiderable number of real or 

 apparent exceptions ; whilst the latter, under renewed 

 examination, are not infrequently affording delight, as 

 they are found to possess some unsuspected adapta- 

 tion to cr<m-fertilisation, which, in occasional instances, 

 especially amongst the orchids, J is so droll as to sound 

 rather like the outcome of a rampant fancy than a 

 narration of sober fact. I am not unmindful of the 

 existence of blossoms, denominated cleistogamous, pro- 

 duced, under certain conditions, by some plants, and 

 which must, by their structure, be self-fertilised; these 

 we shall find, when they presently come before us, are 

 produced rather as supplementary or alternative than 

 exclusive organs of reproduction. The protest made 

 by Nature, for some profound, perhaps inscrutable 

 reason, against continuous in-breeding, applies, then, no 

 less to plants than to animals, to flowers than to bees. 



* "Die Befruchtung der Blumen durch Insecten," 1873. 



f " The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation," and " The Different 

 Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species," 1877. 



t "The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilised by 

 Insects." C. Darwin. 1877. 



