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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: clover, which is visited by humble-bees alone; so that whole fields of the
red clover offer in vain an abundant supply of precious nectar to the
hive-bee. Thus it might be a great advantage to the hive-bee to have a
slightly longer or differently constructed proboscis. On the other hand, I
have found by experiment that the fertility of clover greatly depends on
bees visiting and moving parts of the corolla, so as to push the pollen on
to the stigmatic surface. Hence, again, if humble-bees were to become rare
in any country, it might be a great advantage to the red clover to have a
shorter or more deeply divided tube to its corolla, so that the hive-bee
could visit its flowers. Thus I can understand how a flower and a bee
might slowly become, either simultaneously or one after the other, modified
On the Origin of Species |
