Coming to feast with his
tongue dusted from anthers nearest the nectary, he pollenizes the
large stigmas of a short-styled blossom without touching its tall
anthers. But it is evident that he could not be depended on to
fertilize the long-styled form, with its smaller stigma, because
of this ability to insert his slender tongue from the side where
it avoids contact. Flies and beetles enter the blossoms, but
small bees are best adapted as all-round benefactors. This
simple-looking blossom, that measures barely half an inch across,
is clever enough to multiply its lovely species a thousand fold,
while many a larger, and therefore one might suppose a wiser,
flower dwindles toward extinction.
John Burroughs found a single bluet in blossom one January, near
Washington, when the clump of earth on which it grew was frozen
solid. A pot of roots gathered in autumn and placed in a sunny
window has sent up a little colony of star-like flowers
throughout a winter.
WILD, COMMON, or CARD TEASEL; GYPSY COMBS
(Dipsacus sylvestris) Teasel family
Flowers - Purple or lilac, small, packed in dense, cylindric
heads, 3 to 4 in.
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