After counting two hundred and fifty minute florets, tightly
clustered, one’s tired eyes give out. A honey-ball, with a well
of nectar in each of these narrow tubes, invites hosts of insects
to its hospitable feast; but only visitors long and slender of tongue
can drain the last drop, therefore the vicinity of this bush is an
excellent place for a butterfly collector to carry his net. Butter-
flies are by far the most abundant visitors; honey-bees also abound,
bumblebees, carpenter and mining bees, wasps, a horde of flies,
and some destructive beetles; but the short tongues can reach
little nectar. Why do the pistils of the florets protrude so far?
Even before each minute bud opened, all its pollen had been shed
on the tip of the style, to be in a position to be removed by the
first visitor alighting on the ball of bloom. After the removal of
the pollen from the still immature stigma, it becomes sticky, to
receive the importation from other blossoms. Did not the floret
pass through two distinct stages, first male, then female, self-
fertilization, not cross-fertilization, would be the inevitable result.
The dull red and green seed-balls, which take on brown and
bronze tints after frost, make beautiful additions to an autumn
bouquet. The bush is next of kin to the coffee.
