. Botany for young people : Part II. How plants behave ; how they move, climb, employ insects to work for them, & c. Botany. the honey-tube, its mouth opening just behind the base of this petal. Only the lower half of the tube, more enlarged and capacious, gets filled with nectar. To drain a cup which is about an inch and a half deep requires a long proboscis, much longer- than any bee or wasp possesses. Butterflies and moths are our only insects capable of do- ing it; and one could predict from a view of the flower that the work is done by them. In fact we have hardly a butterfly with pro
. Botany for young people : Part II. How plants behave ; how they move, climb, employ insects to work for them, & c. Botany. the honey-tube, its mouth opening just behind the base of this petal. Only the lower half of the tube, more enlarged and capacious, gets filled with nectar. To drain a cup which is about an inch and a half deep requires a long proboscis, much longer- than any bee or wasp possesses. Butterflies and moths are our only insects capable of do- ing it; and one could predict from a view of the flower that the work is done by them. In fact we have hardly a butterfly with proboscis long enough to reach the bottom of the cup : so we conclude that one of the Sphynxes or Night-moths, such as flock around the blos- soms of the largest EveningvPrimroses at dusk, is the proper helpmate of the Greater Green Orchis. The Smaller Green Orchis is much like the Larger, but with honey-tube hardly an Kg. 20. Side view of head of a moth (Spiiynx iuoh long. This may be drained by many of our butterflies. Some of these have been caught with a remarkable body attached to their great eyes, one on each eye ; on exam- ination this body proved to be quite like that represented in Fig. 18, only smaller. This body, as we have seen, is the pollen of one of the cells of an Orchis anther, with its stalk and sticky disk, the latter adhering to the insect's eye. How did it get there ? 57. The centre of the flower (as in Fig. Fig. 21 Front TOW of the same, with the pollen- iQ\ jg occupied by the One large anther, and masses in the position they soon take. Both . figures magnified to the same degree as is the by the COnCave stlgma. The anther IS 01 Orchis flower in Fig. 16. ^^^ ^^jj^^ ^^-^^^ ^^^^^ tOWards the frOllt of the flower and diverge, in this species widely, and the whole space between the two diverging horns on the sides and the orifice of the honey-tube below is stigma, a broad patch of glutinous surface. At the tip of each horn of the anther, facing forwards and partl
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1872
