Outdoor Visits  by Edith M. Patch

Nan's Blue Spring Flower

The side of a little hill in the park looked blue in May. It was covered with bluets.

The flowers were tiny. They grew close together.

Butterflies came to visit the bluets. They were thirsty and liked to drink nectar.

Little bees came to these flowers for nectar, too.

The insects put their mouths into the flowers to find the sweet juice.

Part of each bluet was shaped like a tiny tube. The nectar was in the lower end of the tube.

When a bee reached for the nectar she touched the pollen in the flower. Some of the pollen stuck to her long tongue.

So the bee took pollen from flower to flower.

There were two kinds of bluet flowers on the hill. Both kinds of flowers had pollen.

In the first kind of flower the pollen was high. It was near the top of the tube.

In the second kind of flower the pollen was low in the tube near the nectar.

The seeds in the first flowers could not grow with high pollen. They needed low pollen to make them live.

The seeds in the second flowers could not grow with low pollen. They needed the high pollen.

The baby bluet seeds could grow because the little insects took the high pollen and low pollen to them.

Uncle Tom told Nan about the two kinds of bluet flowers.

Nan said, "I am glad the bluets give nectar to bees and butterflies. And I am glad the insects carry pollen from flower to flower. The insects and flowers help each other."