The Fairy-Land of Science

Now look for the stamens; there are four of them, two long and two short, and they are quite hidden under the hood which forms the top of the flower. How will the bee touch them? If you were to watch one, you would find that when the bee alights on the broad lip and thrusts her head down the tube, she first of all knows her back against the little forked tip. This is the sticky stigma, and she leaves there any dust she has brought from another flower; then, as she must push far in to reach the honey, before she comes out again has carried away the yellow powder on her back, ready to give it to the next flower. Do you remember how we noticed at the beginning of the lecture that a bee always likes to visit the same kind of plant in one journey? You see now that this is very useful to the flowers. If the bee went from a dead-nettle to a geranium, the dust would be lost, for it would be of no use to any other plant but a dead- nettle. But since the bee likes to get the same kind of honey each journey, she goes to the same kind of flowers, and places the pollen-dust just where it is wanted.