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136
My Studio Neighbors
·
W. Hamilton Gibson
74
Look
where
we
will
among
the
blossoms,
we
find
the
same
beautiful
plan
of
intercommunion
and
reciprocity
everywhere
demonstrated.
The
means
appear
without
limit
in
their
evolved--rather,
I
should
say,
involved--ingenuity.
Pluck
the
first
flower
that
you
meet
in
your
stroll
to-morrow,
and
it
will
tell
you
a
new
story.
Only
a
few
days
since,
while
out
on
a
drive,
I
passed
a
luxuriant
clump
of
the
plant
known
as
"horse-balm."
I
had
known
it
all
my
life,
and
twenty
years
previously
had
made
a
careful
analytical
drawing
of
the
mere
botanical
specimen.
What
could
it
say
to
me
now
in
my
more
questioning
mood?
Its
queer
little
yellow-fringed
flowers
hung
in
profusion
from
their
spreading
terminal
racemes.
I
recalled
their
singular
shape,
and
the
two
outstretched
stamens
protruding
from
their
gaping
corolla,
and
could
distinctly
see
them
as
I
sat
in
the
carriage.
I
had
never
chanced
to
read
of
this
flower
in
the
literature
of
cross-fertilization,
and
murmuring,
half
aloud,
"What
pretty
mystery
is
yours,
my
Collinsonia?"
prepared
to
investigate.
What
I
observed
is
pictured
severally
at
Fig.
9,
the
flowers
being
shown
from
above,
showing
the
two
spreading
stamens
and
the
decidedly
exceptional
unsymmetrical
position
of
the
long
style
extending
to
the
side.
A
small
nectar-seeking
bumblebee
had
approached,
and
in
alighting
upon
the
fringed
platform
grasped
the
filaments
for
support,
and
thus
clapped
the
pollen
against
his
sides.
Reasoning
from
analogy,
it
would
of
course
be
absolutely
clear
that
this
pollen
has
thus
been
deposited
where
it
will
come
in
contact
with
the
stigma
of
another
flower.
So,
of
course,
it
proved.
In
the
bee's
continual
visits
to
the
several
flowers
he
came
at
length
to
the
younger
blooms,
where
the
forked
stigmas
were
turned
directly
to
the
front,
while
the
immature
stamens
were
still
curled
up
in
the
flower
tubes.
Even
the
unopened
buds
showed
a
number
of
species
where
the
early
matured
stigma
actually
protruded
through
a
tiny
orifice
in
precisely
the
right
position
to
strike
the
pollen-dusted
body
of
the
bee,
as
he
forced
his
tongue
through
the
tiny
aperture.[A]
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