. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 1919 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 407 observation, experimentation. Spren- gel's answer was reached by the first two; the new answer sought by Dar- win was to be obtained through the third. For eleven years he put the question direct to the plants them- selves; fertilizing them by their own pollen; cross-fertilizing them; raising and re-questioning their offspring. More and stronger progeny from crossing was the answer. The popularity that Linnaeus had given to characterizing and classify- ing living things, was transferred by Darwin to studying their structu
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 1919 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 407 observation, experimentation. Spren- gel's answer was reached by the first two; the new answer sought by Dar- win was to be obtained through the third. For eleven years he put the question direct to the plants them- selves; fertilizing them by their own pollen; cross-fertilizing them; raising and re-questioning their offspring. More and stronger progeny from crossing was the answer. The popularity that Linnaeus had given to characterizing and classify- ing living things, was transferred by Darwin to studying their structure and doings. Sprengel's idea fell up- on barren soil, Darwin's was cultiva- ted with care and skill. Two men, Mueller, a German, and Delpino, an Italian, stand out most prominently among a multitude who observed and wrote and pictured the marvels of flowers and insect harmo- nies for a generation. All did excel- lent work in furnishing new details and corroborations, but Darwin had answered the question as to the what and the why of the nectar of flowers. But there is nectar that is not pro- duced in flowers. Look at the queer spots in the angles betwen the veins on the under side of a Catalpa leaf, when it is young, or at the little gob- lets on the stalk of a cherry or peach or snowball leaf, or at the pin-head spots on a trumpet-creeper or pae- ony calyx, and you may see glands there that secrete a sweet fluid. Bees may not care for it, but wasps or ants do. The cotton plant has such nectar glands on the outside of the cluster of bracts about each blossom, and on the back of its leaves. In a very few cases such " floral" nectar serves the same pur- pose as that within the flowers; but generally it does not lead to fertili- zation. Delpino called the nectir that leads to fertilization "nuptial" nectar, and the other "; In the seventies of the last century an English mining engineer, Belt, well known in the ore regions of Col
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
