My Studio Neighbors

He has now reached the top of the cluster among the younger blossoms. He creeps up the outstretched platform of the flower, and has barely thrust his head within its tube when down comes the pair of clappers on his back (C). Presently he backs out, bearing a generous dab of yellow pollen, which is further increased from each subsequent flower. He has now finished this cluster, and flies to the next, alighting as usual on the lowermost tier of bloom. In them the elongated stigma now hangs directly in his path, and comes in contact with the pollen on his back as the insect sips the nectar. Cross-fertilization is thus insured; and, moreover, cross-fertilization not only from a distinct flower, but from a separate cluster, or even a separate plant. For in these older stigmatic flowers the anther as it comes down upon his back is seen to be withered, having shed its pollen several days since, the supply of pollen on the bee's body being sufficient to fertilize all the stigmas in the cluster, until a new supply is obtained from the pollen-bearing blossoms above. And thus he continues his rounds. The sage is a representative of the large botanical order known as the Mint family, the labiates, or gaping two-lipped flowers, the arched hood here answering to the upper lip, the spreading base forming the lower lip, which is usually designed as a convenient threshold for the insects while sipping the nectar deep within the tube. This mechanism of the sage is but one of many curious and various contrivances in the Mint family, all designed for the same end, the intercrossing of the flowers.