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The
insect visitor in search of nectar must get dusted with pollen
from the late maturing anthers now ready for him. By this
ingenious method the flower becomes cross-fertilized and wastes
the least pollen.
Bees and wasps evidently pursue opposite routes in going to work,
the former beginning at the bottom of a spike or raceme, where
the older, more mature flowers are, and working upward; the wasps
commencing at the top, among the newly opened ones. In spite of
the fact that we usually see hive bees about this plant,
pilfering the generous supply of nectar in each tiny cup, it is
undoubtedly the wasp that is the flower's truest benefactor,
since he carries pollen from the older blossoms of the last
raceme visited to the projecting stigmas of the newly opened
flowers at the top of the next cluster. Manifestly no flower,
even though it were especially adapted to wasps, as this one is,
could exclude bees. About one-third of all its visitors are
wasps.

HAIRY BEARD-TONGUE
(Pentstemon hirsutus; P.


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