Look at the morning-glory, for instance; it has hairs at the entrance to
the nectaries which the ants cannot readily pass, but which the bees can
push aside. The openings to the nectary are large enough readily to
admit the tongue of a bee, and the distance into the nectar is about the
length of a bee’s tongue; but there are no sticky guards to preserve the
honey, for the bees and small beetles and other tiny insects often crawl
into the tube and eat the honey and even devour the flower itself.
[Illustration: EVENING PRIMROSE.]
Tropæolum has a fine large tube full of rich honey for bees and humming
birds. This tube no doubt corresponds to some tongue or bird-bill in her
own South America. But in our country the bees answer very well. The
bumblebee is fond of Tropæolum honey and fertilizes the flower, while an
occasional ruby throat may be seen taking a sip.
Jewelweed’s horn is a humming bird tube and a bee tube, too. The flowers
are so delicately balanced on tiny stalks that wingless insects would
not find an easy entrance.
Pelargonium, too, has a tube suited to some long and slim-tongued
visitor. In her own native land in far-away Africa she probably loves
the butterflies that live there, who also love her, and so they have
grown tongue and tube to fit each other. For the flower is not the only
one to change: the insect changes to suit the flower at the same time
that the flower changes to suit the insect. They grow to fit each other.
Wherever you see a flower tube you may be sure there is somewhere a
tongue to fit it.
GLOSSARY.
L. = Latin. A.-S. = Anglo-Saxon.
A.
=Acheloüs=, _n._ A river god with whom Hercules wrestled. Like
Proteus, Acheloüs could change his shape; he became a serpent and a
bull, but Hercules vanquished him nevertheless and tore off his
horn, which became the horn of plenty.
=Alternate=, _a._ L. _alter_, another; one following another. Said of
leaves standing singly at the nodes of a stem; also of stamens that
stand between the petals, and of petals that are placed between the
sepals.
=Amalthea=, _n._ In Greek mythology, the nurse of Jupiter, probably a
goat.
=Amœba=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “change”; the name of one of
the lowest forms of life; a bit of living protoplasm capable of
existing as a single cell and of changing its form at will.
=Ancestors=, _n._ L. _antecessor_, a foregoer; forefathers; those from
whom animals or plants are descended.
=Animal cells=, _n._ The cells or minute divisions which make up the
animal body.
=Animals=, _n._ All living things which are not plants are animals. In
the lower forms of life it is impossible to decide whether certain
living things are animals or plants.
=Anther=, _n._ From a Greek word meaning “flower”; that part of the
stamen containing the pollen.
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