Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/708

688 that they are descended from ancestral yellow forms by retaining vestiges of this color on the base of the petals, as in the water-crowfoot. The pale yellow flowers of Œnoiliera laciniata, of the cultivated Ribes aureum, and of Diervilla trifida in fading change to rose or red, exhibiting a tendency to develop red coloration. Aquilegia canadensis produces scarlet flowers, which are yellow inside and rarely all over. There are two other species in the Northern flora which exhibit similar coloring, Lonicera sempervirens and Spigelia marylandica, and the former is sometimes yellow throughout. Myosotis is at first pale yellow, and changes to sky-blue. But the best illustration of the transition from yellow to blue is exhibited by the violet family; the smallest and simplest species is yellow, the most highly specialized is blue, and all the intermediate stages are presented by Viola tricolor.

Honey-guides are exceedingly rare among yellow flowers. Cassia chamœcrista, which has nearly regular, showy yellow flowers, has two or three petals with a purple spot at base, while four of the anthers are yellow and six purple. It is interesting to compare with this flower the change of color presented by Arnebia. When the flower opens, each lobe of the yellow corolla is marked by a dark purple spot, which soon begins to fade, and by the next day has entirely disappeared. Saxifraga aizoides has golden flowers spotted with orange, and attracts a large number of insect visitors, and the yellow violets have their petals marked with dark-brown lines leading to the honey glands. Sulphur-yellow flowers are visited chiefly by bumblebees, and their coloration seems to have been developed by their selective influence from red or purple-flowered ancestors. Müller observed that the sulphur-yellow flowers of Sempervivum Wulfenii, wdiich are unlike the primitive yellow of the Crassulaceæ, are purple at base. This purple coloring he believed to be a remnant inherited from an earlier purple-flowered form. Hibiscus trionum, which is sulphur-yellow with a blackish eye, has perhaps been derived from a red-flowered ancestor, for the three other species of the genus are rose or flesh colored.

White flowers, in the opinion of the writer, are due to retrogression, and are derived from yellow, red, or blue, and in some instances from the primitive green, as in the involucre of Cornus. As a whole they present no advance in specialization over yellow flowers, and are often smaller and less conspicuous. When the petals of blossoms containing yellow, red, or blue pigments are placed in concentrated alcohol they turn to white. To produce these pigments is evidently more or less a tax upon the energies of the plant, which, whenever possible, is avoided. They are not present in the embryonic buds, and may not develop until they are well advanced