Abstract
IN NATURE of May 20 the reviewer, in the course of his appreciative and interesting notice of my book, “Life-histories of Familiar Plants,” states:—“We notice that, without stating definitely what insect pollinates the primrose, the author refers to the bee or moth as doing it, in a misleading way. He would have been wiser to ask readers to notice what insect is really effective in the case of this plant. Neither honey-bees nor moths are known to be so.” Regarding this point, on p. 78 I have written as follows:—“Now, watch the occasional bee that makes a visit to these two different types of flowers. Here is one alighting. With the sudden weight thus imposed upon it the flower sways,” &c. This passage, of course, refers to a humble-bee, as the reference to “the sudden weight” clearly implies. It is true that I did not definitely state that it was a humble-bee, but, on the other hand, I have nowhere in the chapter referred to the honey-bee.
Similar content being viewed by others
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
WARD, J. The Pollination of the Primrose. Nature 80, 457 (1909). https://doi.org/10.1038/080457a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/080457a0
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.