If however no bee happens to come to one of these
flowers, after a time the stigma becomes sticky and it uses its
own pollen: and this is perhaps one reason why the bird's-foot
trefoil is so very common, because it can do its own work if the
bee does not help it.
Now we come lastly to the Orchis flower. Mr. Darwin has written
a whole book on the many curious and wonderful ways in which
orchids tempt bees and other insects to fertilize them. We can
only take the simplest, but I think you will say that even this
blossom is more like a conjuror's box than you would have
supposed it possible that a flower could be.
Let us examine it closely. It has sic deep-red covering leaves,
Fig. 62, three belonging to the calyx or outer cup, and three
belonging to the corolla or crown of the flower; but all six are
coloured alike, except that the large on in front, called the
"lip", has spots and lines upon it which will suggest to you at
once that they point to the honey.
But where are the anthers, and where is the stigma? 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, which you can pick out with the point of a
needle.
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