Plants and their children

by Frances Theodora Parsons

Fig. 229

Try for yourselves to follow these markings with your tongue, and you will win the bee’s reward, a sweet drop of nectar.

Whenever you see a flower with such vivid markings as these, it will be worth your while to play the bee, and start a honey hunt.

Sometimes the sweet drop lies at the base of the flower leaves, as in the lilies; sometimes in a pocket, as in many of the orchids; sometimes it is in the bottom of a long spur such as you see in the columbine, violet, and nasturtium (Fig. [231]).

Fig. 230

Fig. [232] shows you the beautiful flowers of the mountain laurel.

These flowers play a clever trick on their bee visitors. They wish to make perfectly sure that their pollen will be carried from one blossom to another, and so they set a little trap.

Fig. 231