Identifier: flowerbeeplant00love (find matches)
Title: The flower and the bee; plant life and pollination
Year: 1918 (1910s)
Authors: Lovell, John Harvey, 1860-1939
Subjects: Fertilization of plants
Publisher: New York, C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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ibit a great variety of rose, pink, flame-colored and red shades. It is rather remarkable that among571 species of Compositoe there are only 9 red flowers. On theother hand, 13 species, or one-half the mallow family, havepink or red blossoms; and there are 22 species in the pinkfamily. In the buckwheat family the petals are wanting, butthe sepals are often red and sometimes the seed-vessels, stems,and leaves. In the poppy family the flowers are crimson,scarlet, or red, and the sap is also yellow and red. The mostbrilliant red flower in our flora is the cardinal-flower (Lobeliacardinalis. Fig. 112), which is pollinated by humming-birds.There are also three flowers which are scarlet outside, butyellow within, and rarely all over; they are the wild columbine,trumpet-honeysuckle, and Maryland pinkroot, to all three ofwhich humming-birds are common visitors. Blue FlowersThere are 325 blue flowers and 194 blue-purple flowers inthe flora of northeastern America. Blue is the highest color 248
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Fig. 112. Cardinal-Flower. Lobelia cardinalisThe most brilliant red flower in our flora. A humming-bird flower THE FLOWER AND THE BEE in the floral world, and undoubtedly blue flowers, as a whole,were the latest evolved. They adorn the culminations in flower-building. Simple, small, regular flowers, as has already beenshown, are usually white or yellow, as the water-plantains,buttercups, and fivefingers, while many red flowers are alsoprimitive in structure. But corollas which are two-lipped, orbilaterally sj^mmetrical, and highly modified are most frequentlyblue or blue-purple and are often variegated with other hues.For instance, in the buttercup family, while the buttercups areyellow, the bilateral larkspurs and monks-hoods have bluesepals and petals. Again, in the rose family the regular rotatefivefingers are yellow and the roses are white or red, and blueflowers are entirely absent; but in the sister family of thepea family (Papilionacece), where the corolla is butterfly-shaped,

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