36 
HOW PLANTS EMPLOY INSECTS TO WORK FOR THEM, 
73. In Figwort or Scrophularia, and in many other flowers of which this may 
serve as an example, the work is done with much saving of pollen by calling in 
the aid of insects. Fig. 30 
is an enlarged representa- 
tion of one of the flowers, 
as it appears throughout 
the day of opening. The 
style projects from the 
gorge of the corolla, pre- 
senting the stigma just 
over the front edge. The 
stamens are out of sight 
F .. „ _ ... . A . „ . . . „ and reach, and not yet 
' Fig. 30. Flower of Scrophularia nodosa, the first day. 31. Inside new of > J 
it, the front half cut away. 32. Flower as it appears on the second day. ready : they lie recurved 
below, as shown in Fig. 
31. A day or two later the flower appears as in Fig. 32 : the style is flabby or 
withering, and the stigma uried up; the stamens have straightened their fila- 
ments, and have brought up the four now opened anthers above the front edge of 
the corolla, where the stigma was the day before. The bottom of the corolla- 
cup contains some nectar. Honey-bees are attracted by it. When they visit a 
flower in the state of Fig. 32, alighting as they do on the front lip, they get the 
chest and legs well dusted with pollen, none of which has acted upon its own 
stigma ; for that was dry and effete before these anthers opened. When the bee 
passes to a freshly expanded flower, such as Fig. 30, the parts covered with pol- 
len are sure to be brought against the fresh and active stigma, which cannot have 
possibly been touched by any pollen of that flower, its anthers being still imma- 
ture and hidden below. 
74. In some other Flowers the pollen is conveyed from an earlier to the stigma 
of a later blossom, the anthers maturing and shedding their pollen before the 
stigma is ready to receive any. A beautiful case of the sort, in which a move- 
ment comes conspicuously into play, may be seen in Clerodendron Thompsonian, a 
climbing shrub from tropical Africa which blooms in our conservatories. Four 
stamens with very long filaments and an equally long and slender style are rolled 
up together in the corolla-bud. When this expands, the stamens straighten out 
nearly in the line of the tube of the corolla, and their anthers open : the style 
