The inaccessible crevice of a precipice, moist rocks sprayed with
the dashing waters of a lake or some tumbling mountain stream,
wind-swept upland meadows, and shady places by the roadside may
hold bright bunches of these hardy bells, swaying with exquisite
grace on tremulous, hair-like stems that are fitted to withstand
the fiercest mountain blasts, however frail they appear. How
dainty, slender, tempting these little flowers are! One gladly
risks a watery grave or broken bones to bring down a bunch from
its aerial cranny.
It was a long stride forward in the evolutionary scale when the
harebell welded its five once separate petals together; first at
the base, then farther and farther up the sides, until a solid
bell-shaped structure resulted. This arrangement which makes
insect fertilization a more certain process because none of the
pollen is lost through apertures, and because the visitor must
enter the flower only at the vital point where the stigmas come
in contact with his pollen-laden body, has given to all the
flowers that have attained to it, marked ascendency.
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