My Studio Neighbors

Allied to the milkweed is another plant, the dogbane (Apocynum), which has a similar trick of entrapping its insect friends. Its drooping, fragrant, bell-shaped white flowers and long slender pods will help to recall it. But its method of capture is somewhat similar to the milkweed. The anthers are divided by a V-shaped cavity, into which the insect's tongue is guided as it is withdrawn from the flower, and into which it often becomes so tightly wedged as to render escape impossible. I have found small moths dangling by the tongue, as seen in the illustration below. INDEX Agalena, house-spider, 7. Alypia, grape-vine-moth, 160. Andromeda (A. ligustrina), singular greeting to the bee, 126; interior arrangement of flower, 128; release of the pollen, 129. Angraecum, orchid of Madagascar, with nectary eleven inches long, 219. Ants, herding the aphides, 166; a model honey-farm, 167. "Ant-holes," 61. Aphides, plant-lice, founders of the feast, 165; herded by ants, 167. Apocynum, dogbane, 236. Aprophora, spume-bearer, 82. Arethusa bulbosa, orchid, 175. Argiope, field spider, 8. Aristolochias, 119. Aristotle, 23. Arum, wild: --Position of the anthers, 141; progressive stages of change, 142. Asclepias cornuta, milkweed, 227. Asilus, "robber-fly", 8. Axell, a follower of Darwin, 116. Bees: --The drone of, 5; a counterpart of clover; dependence of clover on, 117; manner of approach, 121; black-and-white banded, 126; approach to the blue-flag, 131; experiment with the bumblebee, 209; his escape from the flower, 210; manner of cross-fertilizing, 212; manner of conveying the pollen, 218; his difficulties with the milkweed flower, 233; the cumbersome handicap, 234; destroyed by the milkweed, 235.