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It has been
said that the fringed polygala keeps "one flower for beauty and
one for use"; "one playful flower for the world, another for
serious use and posterity"; but surely the showy flowers, the
"giddy sisters," borne by all cleistogamous species to save them
from degenerating through close inbreeding, are no idle,
irresponsible beauties. Let us watch a bumblebee as she alights
on the convenient fringe which edges the lower petal of this
milkwort. Now the weight of her body so depresses the keel, or
tubular petals, wherein the stamens and pistil lie protected from
the rain and useless insects, that as soon as it is pressed
downward a spoon-tipped pistil pushes out the pollen through the
slit on the top on the bee's abdomen. The stigmatic surface of
the pistil is on the opposite side of the spoon, nearest the base
of the flower, to guard against self-pollination. After the
pollen has been removed, a bumblebee, already dusted from other
blossoms, must leave some on the stigma as she sucks the nectar.


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