. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 116 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL April. Fig. 2.—Lady' of small grapes. Bees visit the little bells of the lily-of-the-valley for pol- len only. Asparagus is a good honey- plant and the inverted green flowers yield nectar freely; it is extensively cultivated in America and grows wild so abundantly on the Russian steppes that the cattle feed upon it like grass. The lilies are chiefly pol- linated by butterflies. In the lib family the bee-flowers differ from the other forms chiefly in their pendu- lous position and longer and partly closed corolla. But in the or
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 116 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL April. Fig. 2.—Lady' of small grapes. Bees visit the little bells of the lily-of-the-valley for pol- len only. Asparagus is a good honey- plant and the inverted green flowers yield nectar freely; it is extensively cultivated in America and grows wild so abundantly on the Russian steppes that the cattle feed upon it like grass. The lilies are chiefly pol- linated by butterflies. In the lib family the bee-flowers differ from the other forms chiefly in their pendu- lous position and longer and partly closed corolla. But in the orchis family we meet with a number of bumblebee flowers, as the snowy orchis Pogonia and Are- tlmsa, which are brilliantly colored and very irregular in form. This is a family of marvels, with an endless variety of bizarre forms, in some in- stances mimicking bees, flies and birds; one spi itasctum), pro- duces three flowers so unlike that when they were first brought to Eu- rope they were described as belong- ing to three different genera. Imag- ine, then, the consternation of the botanical species-maker when Sir Ralph Schomburgh declared that lie had seen all three flowers growing on one plant. A typical orchis flower consists of 15 organs, hut usu- ally they are so modified and united that only 7 or 8 can be discovered. Unlike the Compositae, the individual flowei is very highly specialized, the nectar i^ deeply concealed (an < n chid from Madagascar has a inches long), and visitors are few both in kind and number \l the flowers fail to set seed, some- times not one in a thousand, and much of the seed proves sterile. The are rare and do not su well in competition with hardy plants. The orchis family is far less successful than the Compositae, and we are fi treed I ncludc that elab- orate modification and adaptation to ,! few i ipt to pi ove a dis- advantage. 0 ies none of them are good honey plant -. vanilla bean, is oi mic The lady's slip]- dium 0C- » flower.
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
