Page "learned" Paragraph 157

Each male willow catkin is composed of a large number of small flowers.

It is not difficult to see that the stamens of the catkin are always arranged in pairs, and that each individual flower is nothing but one such pair standing on a green, black-tipped little scale.

By scrutinizing the flowers, one can also notice that the scale bears one or two tiny warts.

Those are the nectaries or honey glands ( Fig. 26, page 74 ).

The staminate willow catkins, then, provide their visitors with both nectar and pollen ; ;

a marvelous arrangement, for it provides exactly what the bee queens need to make their beebread, a combination of honey and pollen with which the young of all species are fed.

The only exception to this is certain bees that have become parasites.

I will deal with these later on.