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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detail they would seem as incredible as a tale of Munch-ausen. The large, pendulous flowers are creamy-white tingedAvith green or rose, and are borne in magnificent clustersor panicles, which are well worthy of the admiration they ex-cite. Subtropical species of this genus become arboreal andreach an altitude of 30 feet. In California Yucca Whippleisends up a flower-stalk 12 feet high, which for nearly half itslength bears an imposing cluster of flowers. (Fig. 66.) Since the large, bell-shaped flowers hang downward and thestigmas stand in advance of the anthers, self-pollination is im-possible, for the pollen is too glutinous to be carried by thewind, and if accidentally dislodged, it falls directly to theground. The continued existence of the yuccas, therefore,depends chiefly on the little moths of Pronuba. The female 140 H B^l ^^^ it ^^H 1 ^ ^^^^^V^^R i»f. 11 BIP 1 l^m ^ ^^^B ^^^^^^B^^^^S^^K 1 Hb ^^H M ^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ wSk ^m^i^ Fig. 65. Thorn-Apple. Datura Tatula A hawk-moth flower
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Fig. 66. Yucca Whipplei of CaliforniaTwelve feet tall. The magnificent cluster of flowers is about six feet long. (After Riley) NOCTURNAL OR HAWK-MOTH FLOWERS Pronuha is unique among all the thousands of moths and butter-flies in the world in that she has maxillary tentacles for col-lecting pollen, and a horny ovipositor for piercing succulenttissue. In the collection of pollen she resembles the bees, andin the manner of laying her eggs the ichneumon-flies—bothhymenopterous insects. The most widely cultivated and best-known species ofyucca is Adams needle, or Spanish bayonet (F. filamentosa),which is pollinated by Pronuha yuccasella. Soon after twilightfalls these Httle white moths fly from flower to flower gatheringfrom the anthers with their trunk-like tentacles, which arecovered with short spines, the sticky masses of pollen, until aball, sometimes twice or three times as large as her head, hasbeen accumulated. Then she usually flies away to anotherplant, and alighting on the see

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