when they fall off and dry up. Another device is the spathe or 
cowl-like hood, covering the whole cluster in man}' of the arums, 
familiar examples of which are the callas and the skunk cab- 
bage. The linden tree prevents wetting its pollen by a little 
oblong leaf that hangs above its flower cluster, which conducts 
away the rain drops much as a slanting board over one’s head 
would. The iris or flag has utilized part of its pistil, turning it 
into an over-turned trough-like structure, under which one finds 
a single stamen safely housed. Snap-dragons, calceolarias, and 
the members of the pea family have hood-like corollas, while in 
the upright, apparently fully exposed phloxes and primroses, the 
stamens remain in the corolla tube or throat, protected from the 
raindrops by the compressed air cushion brought into existence 
by the drop itself and the slightly contracted mouth of the tube. 
Magnolias, crocuses, flax, peonies and certain water lilies close 
their flowers at night or in damp weather, while the brilliant 
California poppy sheds its pollen on the flower floor and then 
covers it in inclement weather or at night with its four petals, 
each neatly curled up like a cornucopia tent. Some plants are 
so sensitive to the intensity of light or to cloudiness that they 
can close their pollen sacks or anthers on short notice and open 
them again in equally quick time. Plants such as the colts-foot, 
rock-rose, some poppies, scabiosa, and some wild geraniums 
bend their flowers or flower clusters, not in reverence toward 
their Creator as some sentimentalists might say, but indirectly 
because of the approach of harmful weather. 
While only protective devices against weather have been 
mentioned, be assured that most of the flower creation have 
equally sufficient instruments for warding off pollen marauders. 
These take a multitudinous variety of forms, from pollen sacks 
with lids that can only be opened by the elect, to small armies of 
ants that fight off their leaf-cutting relatives because the at- 
tacked plant is their own home and food supply. Some plants 
protect their flowers against ants and other such useless, but 
persistent visitors, by a secretion of sticky substance on their 
flower stems, or on the green-toothed wall that often surrounds 
the whole flower cluster, as in the sunflower and the dandelion. 
The thistles use both thorn and sticky substance. Perhaps you 
have noticed the dead bodies of ants and other pedestrians stick- 
ing, like flies on “tanglefoot,” to the outside of the thistle 
flower, or on some of the gummy sunflower tribe. So commonly 
is this the case with some of the pink family, that they have long 
been known under the name of “Catch-fly.” You recognize, of 
course, that this is the same scheme we ourselves use to protect 
our shade trees when we use “tangle-foot” bands on their 
trunks. Possibly we first secured the idea from this source. 
Plants with these devices welcome only visitors arriving by air, 
and these devices are, in effect, notices: “Pedestrians not wel- 
come.” For these ants and other walkers give but little, if any 
return to the plant for the pollen and honey they take. Besides, 
5 
