n)
that Papilionaceous flowers were fatal to my notion of there being no
eternal hermaphrodites. First let me say how evidence goes. You will
remember my facts going to show that kidney-beans require visits of bees
to be fertilised. This has been positively stated to be the case with
Lathyrus grandiflorus, and has been very partially verified by me.
Sir W. Macarthur tells me that Erythrina will hardly seed in Australia
without the petals are moved as if by bee. I have just met the statement
that, with common bean, when the humble-bees bite holes at the base
of the flower, and therefore cease visiting the mouth of the corolla,
"hardly a bean will set." But now comes a much more curious statement,
that [in] 1842-43, "since bees were established at Wellington (New
Zealand), clover seeds all over the settlement, WHICH IT DID NOT
BEFORE." (587/1. See Letter 362, Volume I.) The writer evidently has no
idea what the connection can be. Now I cannot help at once connecting
this statement (and all the foregoing statements in some degree support
each other, as all have been advanced without any sort of theory) with
the remarkable absence of Papilionaceous plants in N. Zealand. I see in
your list Clianthus, Carmichaelia (four species), a new genus, a shrub,
and Edwardsia (is latter Papilionaceous?). Now what I want to know is
whether any of these have flowers as small as clover; for if they
have large flowers they may be visited by humble-bees, which I think I
remember do exist in New Zealand; and which humble-bees would not visit
the smaller clover. Even the very minute little yellow clover in England
has every flower visited and revisited by hive-bees, as I know by
experience. Would it not be a curious case of correlation if it could be
shown to be probable that herbaceous and small Leguminosae do not exist
because when [their] seeds [are] washed ashore (!!!) no small bees exist
there. Though this latter fact must be ascertained. I may not prove
anything, but does it not seem odd that so many quite independent facts,
or rather statements, should point all in one direction, viz., that bees
are necessary to the fertilisation of Papilionaceous flowers?

LETTER 588. TO JOHN LUBBOCK (Lord Avebury). Sunday [1859].

Do you remember calling my attention to certain flowers in the truss
of Pelargoniums not being true, or not having the dark shade on the two
upper petals? I believe it was Lady Lubbock's observation. I find, as
I expected