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210
The Fairy-Land of Science
·
Arabella B. Buckley
196
But
as
we
cannot
wander
among
many
plants
to-day,
let
us
take
a
few
which
the
bees
visit,
and
see
how
they
contrive
not
to
give
up
their
honey
without
getting
help
in
return.
We
will
start
with
the
blue
wood-geranium,
because
from
it
we
first
began
to
learn
the
use
of
insects
to
flowers.
More
than
a
hundred
years
ago
a
young
German
botanist,
Christian
Conrad
Sprengel,
noticed
some
soft
hairs
growing
in
the
centre
of
this
flower,
just
round
the
stamens,
and
he
was
so
sure
that
every
part
of
a
plant
is
useful,
that
he
set
himself
to
find
out
what
these
hairs
meant.
He
soon
discovered
that
they
protected
some
small
honey-bags
at
the
base
of
the
stamens,
and
kept
the
rain
from
washing
the
honey
away,
just
as
our
eyebrows
prevent
the
perspiration
on
our
faces
from
running
into
our
eyes.
This
led
him
to
notice
that
plants
take
great
care
to
keep
their
honey
for
insects,
and
by
degrees
he
proved
that
they
did
this
in
order
to
tempt
the
insects
to
visit
them
and
carry
off
their
pollen.
The
first
thing
to
notice
in
this
little
geranium
flower
is
that
the
purple
lines
which
ornament
it
all
point
directly
to
the
place
where
the
honey
lies
at
the
bottom
of
the
stamens,
and
actually
serve
to
lead
the
bee
to
the
honey;
and
this
is
true
of
the
veins
and
marking
of
nearly
all
flowers
except
of
those
which
open
by
night,
and
in
these
they
would
be
useless,
for
the
insects
would
not
see
them.
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