The tall FOXGLOVE BEARD-TONGUE (P. digitalis), with large, showy
white blossoms tinged with purple, the one most commonly grown in
gardens here, escapes on the slightest encouragement to run wild
again from Maine to Virginia, west to Illinois and Arkansas.
Small bees crawl into the broad tube, and butterflies drain the
nectar evidently secreted for long-tongued bees, but without
certainly transferring pollen. To insure cross-fertilization, the
flower first develops its anthers, whose saw-edges grating
against the visitors thorax, aid in sifting out the dry pollen;
and later the style, which when immature clung to the top of the
corolla, lowers its receptive stigma to oppose the bee's
entrance. Professor Robertson has frequently detected the common
wasp nipping holes with her sharp jaws in the base of the tube.
With remarkable intelligence she invariably chose to insert her
tongue at the precise spots where the nectar is stored on either
side of the sterile filament.
BLUE-EYED MARY; INNOCENCE; BROAD-LEAVED COLLINSIA
(Collinsia verna) Figwort family
Flowers - On slender, weak stalks; whorled in axils of upper
leaves.
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