United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She hesitated, half recoiling for an instant, and her hand trembled. Then, suddenly and abruptly she said, with a hysteric little laugh, "Take it, then," and almost thrust it in his hand. It certainly was a pretty flower, not unlike a lily in appearance, with a bell-like cup and long anthers covered with a fine pollen, like red dust.
And note, too, in these same little creatures, her unjust avarice and insensate waste. From her birth to her death, the austere forager has to travel abroad in search of the myriad flowers that hide in the depths of the thickets. She has to discover the honey and pollen that lurk in the labyrinths of the nectaries and in the most secret recesses of the anthers.
Now, however, the bee can get at the honey-glands on the outside of the raised stamens; and as he sucks it, his back touches the anthers or dust-bags, and he carries off the pollen. Then, as soon as all their dust is gone, these five stamens fall down, and the other five spring up.
The flowers are borne in a crowded circle on the top of the stem, just outside the cluster of young yellow spines, a strong plant having about forty flowers open together. Each flower is about ½ in. long and wide, and coloured bright crimson, with yellow anthers. Native of Mexico. Flowers in June. It should be grown along with M. bicolor.
The change affects both the filament and the anther, the former of which is dilated into a sheath. Within this sheath perfect and more or less numerous ovules may be produced. The anthers become rudimentary and in their place broad leafy flaps are developed, which protrude laterally from the tip and constitute the stigmas.
Now, when the bee puts her head into the tube to reach the honey, she passes right between these two swinging anthers, and knocking against the end pushes it before her and so brings the dust-bag plump down on her back, scattering the dust there! you can easily try this by thrusting a pencil into any Salvia flower, and you will see the anther fall.
You will notice that all this time the be does not touch the sticky stigma which hangs high above her, but after the anthers are empty and shrivelled the stalk of the stigma grows longer, and it falls lower down. By-and-by another bee, having pollen on her back, comes to look for honey, and as she goes into No. 3, she rubs against the stigma and leaves upon it the dust from another flower.
In the first place, it hangs on a thin stalk, and bends its head down so that the rain cannot come near the honey in the spur, and also so that the pollen-dust falls forward into the front of the little box made by the closed anthers. Then the pollen is quite dry, instead of being sticky as in most plants. This is in order that it may fall easily through the cracks.
The flowers are about 3 in. wide, spreading, the petals, broad and overlapping, rose-coloured, except in the centre of the flower, where they become almost pure white; the anthers are yellow, whilst the colour of the rayed stigma is purplish-blue. A native of Mexico, introduced and flowered in 1838.
The five subsequent Classes are distinguished not by the number of the males, or stamens, but by their union or adhesion, either by their anthers, or filaments, or to the female or pistil. XVI. ONE BROTHERHOOD, Monadelphia. XVII. TWO BROTHERHOODS, Diadelphia. No. xvii. XVIII. MANY BROTHERHOODS, Polyadelphia. Many Stamens united by their filaments into three or more companies, as in No. xviii.
Word Of The Day