July 1927
426
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
God and the Humm ing Birds
B y P r o f . R o l a n d C a s e R oss Ass’t Supt. Nature Study, Los Angeles Schools
gooseberry, but by the claim of pos session, which is said to be nine points of the law, it should be called the hummingbird’s fire bell. From morning to night, during the long flowering seasons of early spring, the hummers haunt the dells and nooks of most hillsides, working in and out of the bushes hung with these glorious fairy lanterns. Because of the tube effect hummingbirds and the larger bees are the usual visitors and because of the color the birds are
' UMMINGBIRDS h a v e long been known as lovers of the flowers, particu larly red colored ones. In their visitations to tubular
■ I flowers a valuable service, that of cross-pollination, is frequent ly performed. Bees and other insects carry on this transfer process for great numbers of flowering plants and the wind also wafts the pollen from flower to flower, or tree to tree in other instances; but the deep-
the regular pensioners. Out of the tube project the fila ments to an extent nearly twice that of the tube. No bee would be hit with the ends of these long stamens, but ■humming-birds are every time. It works this way : The gooseberry flower, like the fuschia, hangs down., The bird hovers beneath, pushes the bill up within the tube and then swings back to give his neck an easier angle “than straight overhead. This turns the flower aside from the perpendicular and at the same time causes the long- extended stamens or the pistil, whichever may be ripe,^ to strike firmly against the bird’s throat. Thus visiting flower after flower, pollen is carried from one to another. That this is an effective medium and method isfiattested by the fruitfulness of the gooseberry, by the bepollened chins of the hummers, and the remarkable diligence and agility of the winged sprites. Mrs. Davidson in her delightful volume, '“California Plants in Their Homes,” says j$he saw one hummer visit’sixty-five of these goose berry flowers in sixty seconds. In the scarlet penstemon and others, the plant’s con tact is with the bird’s head or forehead, the fruiting organs bending down from above. A plant in Florida has been recently described, that strikes the pollen upon the hind part,of the hummingbird’s head. The long extended filaments are held aloft by the vertical growing flower, but when the flower is probed, and pulled aside to avoid the discomfort of the vertical attitude, the stamens with their pollen sacs raised aloft, “as in benediction,” descehd to tap the bird on the back of the head. Thus the suc ceeding flowers of this special kind “know” where to feel for their kind of pollen on the visiting bird, and moreover no other flower will get it. These other flowers also have their own patent positions for pollen transfer on the hum mingbird’s body and they will get their own kind of pollen from their own special portions and positions. Some dust the bird’s forehead, others the chin, another the breast, the top of the head, the nape; and to this exact spot each species of flower promptly resorts when the visitor arrives. It matters not that the messenger stopped enroute from penstemon to penstemon to sip a drop of nectar from Indian paint brush and a few sages on the way. The pollens are not mixed, nor are the original grains entrusted necessarily lost; when the next penstemon is reached there is the pollen in the place reserved for penstemons. Now there are some people who cannot understand this plan. It is by natural law that all such processes are
tubed flowers do not profit greatly by either of these usual means and must depend on hummingbirds, hummingbird moths, and the large bees, such as carpenter bees and bum ble-bees. The bird, the moth and the bee each has a long tongue for probing the depths of these vase-like nectaries ^ and in doing so incidentally the plumage is daubed with pol len which the next or succeeding blooms visited receive. As is well known, pollen from anofher flower or better still, another plant, is more to be desired than pollen pro-' duced by the flower itself. Cross-fertilization gives better results than self-fertilization. To this end it is that some kinds of plants separate the sexes and produce pollen on one individual and ovaries on another; the carob and pep per trees and two weeds, the croton' and ragweed, come to mind as common examples. Thus inbreeding is effectually barred. The same end is obtained in a great proportion of flowering plants by the simple expedient of developing to maturity only one organ of the flower at a time; the pollen of a certain flower does not reach the pistil of that, same flower due to its appearance after the pistil has matured. One can observe this orderly process of maturation in almost any common flower. Just now by stepping into the garden I found it in the peach, lemon and tobacco trees and in the shrubs and weeds as well. Before a peach or a lemon bud is more than cracked open, the ripe, sticky pistil is thrust out, far in advance of the unfoldiiig petals and the Slower growing stamens with their unripe pollen. Some plants reverse the order, shedding pollen and then extruding the stigmas. It is in the tubular flowers that this advance and retard of the two organs is seen most easily. The common plan is for such flowers to extend their fruiting bodies out beyond the tube, often to some considerable distance. These elongated filaments are most conspicuous and the extreme length of one, the pistil, is at once contracted with the barely protruding heads—the anthers—of the stamens. Later the older organ withers as the slower ones grow out. How T h e P o l l e n I s C a r r ied This arrangement is a perfect fitting for cross pollination by hummingbirds and probing insects.^ The red-flowering gooseberry, ribes speciosum, native to California hillsides, is a splendid and accessible example. Because of the shape and pendant attitude of this bright red flower the plant is often called the fuschia-flowered
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker