Darwin and the humble-bees

摘要

On 21 August 1841, Charles Darwin wrote to Horticulture Week forerunner The Gardeners' Chronicle about "the humble-bees which bore holes in flowers" following a reader's complaint about damage to his bean crop. Continuing celebrations of our 175th anniversary, here we republish Darwin's letterMPerhaps some of your readers may like to hear a few more particulars about the humble-bees which bore holes in flowers, and thus extract the nectar. This operation has been performed on a large scale in the Zoological Gardens: Near the refection-house there is a fine bed of Stachys coccinea, every flower in which has one, and sometimes two, small irregular slits, or orifices, on the upper side of the corolla near its base. I observed some plants of Marvel of Peru, and of Salvia coccinea, with holes insimilar positions; but in Salvia Grahami they were without exception cut through the calyx, which is in this species elongated.