Flowers and their Unbidden Guests

Abstract

THIS charming book is the record of an extension, in a somewhat different direction, of the researches of Darwin, Hermann Müller, and others, on the assistance rendered by insects in the cross-fertilisation of flowers. Attention has hitherto been directed almost exclusively to the contrivances by which insects, while feeding on or sucking the honey from the nectary, are almost compelled to be the involuntary agents in the transmission of the pollen from the anther to the stigma in a different flower of the same species. In almost all cases, however, it is only a comparatively small number of insects that would be adapted, by the size of their body, the length of their proboscis, and other points in their structure, to insure the cross-fertilisation of any particular species of flower. It is obvious that the visits of all other insects, which would consume the honey without aiding in the transmission of pollen, not only can be of no advantage, but must be positively injurious to the plant, by preventing the visits of the useful insects. It is this point that Prof. Kerner has studied with great industry and acumen; and he has compiled a number of most interesting illustrations of the contrivances presented in the structure of the flower, which not only force the useful insects to enter it in the particular way which shall be of most advantage to it, but keep out all others.

Flowers and their Unbidden Guests.

By Dr. A. Kerner. With a Prefatory Letter by C. Darwin, M.A., F.R.S. The translation revised and edited by W. Ogle, M.A., M.D. (London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1878.)