Part 36

These are azalea’s body guard. Each tip exudes a drop of sticky liquid.

Fine, sticky hairs cover the stems and the leaves too; so the unfortunate insect that tries to crawl up to the flower is sure to get wings and legs hopelessly entangled and stuck together.

Only large fellows, like bees, who are strong enough to pull themselves free and clean off their legs, are able to defy this body guard. You will sometimes meet our sweet azalea covered on the outside with little marauders who wanted to steal her honey but could not, because the body guard caught them and stuck them fast.

Not all flowers with tubes have succeeded as well as azalea in keeping their honey for the visitors who can do them the most good. Yet many have tried.

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.

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.

=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.

=Anther cells=, n. The hollow spaces in the anther where the pollen is kept.

=Aristocrat=, n. From two Greek words meaning “best” and “rule”; one belonging to the best in a community; one among those fit to rule.

=Aristocratic=, a. Like an aristocrat.

=Axil=, n. L. axilla, little armpit; the angle formed between the upper side of a leaf and the stem or branch to which it is attached.

=Azalea=, n. The name of a plant. The “swamp honeysuckle” is not a honeysuckle, but is an azalea.

=Barb=, n. L. barba, a beard; a tuft of hairs; a sharp point projecting backward from the point of a fish hook or arrow or any other sharp-pointed instrument. The barb prevents the instrument from being readily withdrawn.

=Bark=, n. The outer covering of the stems and roots of woody plants.

=Beak=, n. The bill of a bird; the long, projecting point in the fruit of the geraniums.

=Bloodroot=, n. An early spring flower. A pretty, delicate, white flower opens on a stem that comes up from the ground, and the roots, when wounded, yield a blood-red sap.