394 
FRUIT BLOSSOMS 
seed is produced in abundance if the flow¬ 
ers are cross-pollinated. In the fall the 
bloom becomes highly self-fertile. Nectar 
is secreted freely, and nine-tenths of the 
visits of insects, it is estimated, are made 
by honeybees, upon which the seed crop is 
largely dependent. 
The hop vine, the white and black mul¬ 
berry, the date palm, and many othetr 
palms are also anemophilous or wind-pol¬ 
linated. According to Swingle about one- 
half of the trees of the date palm in 
nature are staminate, or “male,” and one- 
half pistillate, or “female,” so that cross- 
pollination is a necessity. Under cultiva¬ 
tion a single staminate tree will serve to 
pollinate artificially 50 or more pistillate 
trees. In each of the fruiting clusters a 
small branch of pollen flowers is tied. 
THE POLLINATION OF THE LEGUMES. 
In the pulse family, or Leguminosae, the 
seeds are produced in pods called legumes. 
The flowers for the most part are adapted 
to pollination by bees. The nectar is se¬ 
creted at the bottom of a slender tube, 
formed by the union of the stamens, which 
varies greatly in length in different species. 
This great family includes many plants 
which are valuable to the beekeeper for 
honey, and to the farmer for forage or 
their edible seeds, as the clovers, alfalfa, 
sweet clover, vetch, sainfoin, peas, cowpeas, 
pole and bush beans, and the Lima bean. 
The honeybee is the chief agent in the pol¬ 
lination of a very large number of legumin¬ 
ous species, but there are a few which are 
pollinated wholly by bumblebees, or are 
self-pollinated. No other family of plants is 
of so much interest to the beekeeper as the 
pulse family. 
When insects are excluded from the 
bloom of white clover by netting, it is large¬ 
ly sterile. Honeybees, which visit the flow¬ 
ers in immense numbers and gather tons of 
nectar, are the most important pollinators. 
The floral tube is only about half as long 
as the tongue of the honeybee. Alsike 
clover is equally dependent on honeybees 
for pollination, and as it yields nectar most 
abundantly is very attractive to them. It 
is well established that in the absence of 
honeybees, it is impossible to obtain a good 
crop of seed. The chief areas for the pro¬ 
duction of alsike-clover seed are western 
New York, northwestern Ohio, Indiana, 
southern Michigan, Wisconsin, Idaho, Ore¬ 
gon, and Canada. Smaller quantities are 
harvested in Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. 
In all of these sections there are thousands 
of colonies of bees. 
Spontaneous self-pollination occurs only 
to a small extent in sweet clover (Melilotus 
alba). When the flowers are cross-pollin¬ 
ated with pollen taken from another plant 
a higher percentage of pods is obtained 
than in any other way. A plant of sweet 
-clover was enclosed in a cage of cheese 
cloth and all insects excluded. Of the 904 
racemes of flowers produced, 594 produced 
no pods, while 150 produced but one each. 
The average number of pods per raceme 
was .63, or six-tenths of a pod. An iso¬ 
lated plant, which insects were permitted 
to visit freely, produced 239 racemes with 
an average of 41.6 pods per raceme. The 
great advantage of cross-pollination is evi¬ 
dent. The flowers of sweet clover are vis¬ 
ited by many insects, as the nectar can be 
easily gathered. “But the honeybee is the 
most efficient pollinator, and it is believed 
that in many sections it is responsible for 
the pollination of more than half of the 
flowers.” The smaller bees are important, 
but are not numerous enough to pollinate 
large fields of sweet clover. As the result 
of the heavy and reliable flow of nectar, 
honeybees visit the flowers constantly, and 
probably a large part of the honey of¬ 
fered for sale in the large markets comes 
from sweet clover. The financial value of 
the services of the honeybee in pollinating 
white clover, alsike clover, and sweet clover 
is evidently not easily overestimated and 
should be more generally known. 
Alfalfa flowers are often self-pollinated 
especially in the western States, and a fair 
crop of seed may be produced in the ab¬ 
sence of all insects. Cross-pollination is 
an advantage over self-pollination, and in 
a series of experiments while 30 per cent 
of the self-pollinated flowers set pods, 46 
per cent of the cross-pollinated flowers pro¬ 
duced pods. Cross-pollination is nearly al¬ 
ways effected by bees. Leaf-cutting bees 
pollinate 90 per cent of the flowers visited, 
bumblebees 30 per cent, and honeybees 
only about 1 per cent. Out of 500 visits 
by honeybees to alfalfa flowers Westgate 
observed only one flower tripped. Sladen 
