BEES AND FLOWERS. 239 
Look just under the arch made by those three 
bending flower-leaves, and there you will see two 
small slits, and in these some little club-shaped bodies 
p p, which you can pick out with the point of a needle. 
One of these enlarged is shown at P. It is composed 
of sticky grains of pollen a held together by fine 
threads on the top of a thin stalk ; and at the bottom 
of the stalk there is a little round body d. This is 
all that you will find to represent the stamens of the 
flower. When these masses of pollen, or pollinia as 
they are called, are within the flower, the knob at the 
bottom is covered by a little lid r, shutting them in 
like the lid of a box, and just below this lid r you will 
see two yellowish lumps s s, which are very sticky. 
These are the top of the stigma, and they are just 
above the seed-vessel 5 v, which you can see in the 
lowest flower in the picture. 
Now let us see how this flower gives up its pollen. 
When a bee comes to look for honey in the orchis, 
she alights on the lip, and guided by the lines makes 
straight for the opening just in front of the stigmas 
^ s. Putting her head into this opening she pushes 
down into the spur sp, where by biting the inside skin 
she gets some juicy sap. Notice that she has to bite, 
which takes time. 
You will see at once that she must touch the 
stigmas in going in, and so give them any pollen she 
has on her head. But she also touches the little lid r, 
and it Hies instantly open, bringing the glands d at the 
end of the pgllen-masses against her head. These glands 
are moist and sticky, and while she is gnawing the 
