store of honey there ready for the asking. On the other hand, those flowers that are self-fertilized 
or wind-fertilized have inconspicuous blossoms. „ . , ,1 . .1 -tricii-inc* 
The stigma always partially obstructs the entrance to the food supply, so that the visiting 
bee must brush against it, and in doing so will leave some of the pollen that he has brought from 
the last flower visited on its sticky surface. The pollen-dust is attached to ^var c* 
wavs, usually simply by his brushing against the anthers with his hairy body, for it is found that 
nearly all the useful insects have downy or hairy bodies; other flowers set a sort of spring gun a d 
when the insect steps on the trigger he is showered with the germs (Laurel for example), st 
others have clefts to catch the legs of visitors, releasing them only if they are strong enough to te r 
away the pollen masses (such a flower is well illustrated in the Milkweed). Bend *^ having br ght 
colored petals many of the flowers also have a pleasing odor, this also serving to attract certain 
kinds of insects' others have very unpleasant odors, like the skunk-cabbage or even e a 
mitrid meat as in the carrion flower and the purple trillium, these odors being apparently for t e 
Duroose of attracting certain scavenger insects. There are also some flowers, like the evening 
primrose, that are seen at their best after dusk when the light-colored petals are wide spread an 
delicate perfume given off to attract the moths and sphinges that visit them. 
It isevident that a flower secreting honey may be visited by unwelcome guests, ones tha 
accent of the nectar, but will make no useful return. Any insect with a shmy, smooth body, 
whether winged or not, is of little use in fertilizing a plant, for even should it receive pollen, it will 
in all probability have fallen off before the next flower is visited. Ants being particularly fond of 
sweet things and so small that they can enter a flower without disturbing the anthers, frequent y 
drain the nectar cups so no useful insect will visit them, and they fail to reproduce their kind. 
10 
