Zunaed ebooks

Peter Kalm, a
Swedish pupil of Linnaeus, who traveled here early in the
eighteenth century, was more impressed by its beauty than that of
any other flower. He introduced the plant to Europe, where it is
known as kalmia, and extensively cultivated on fine estates that
are thrown open to the public during the flowering season. Even a
flower is not without honor, save in its own country. We have
only to prepare a border of leaf-mould, take up the young plant
without injuring the roots or allowing them to dry, hurry them
into the ground, and prune back the bush a little, to establish
it in our gardens, where it will bloom freely after the second
year.
All the kalmias resort to a most ingenious device for compelling
insect visitors to carry their pollen from blossom to blossom. A
newly opened flower has its stigma erected where the incoming bee
must leave on its sticky surface the four minute orange-like
grains carried from the anther of another flower on the hairy
underside of her body.


Pages:
288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312