I Can’t Sleep - The Perforations of Flowers | Gentle Bedtime Reading

Episode Date: March 26, 2019

Relax with calm bedtime reading from Scientific American Supplement, No. 841 (February 13, 1892) about the perforations of flowers to ease insomnia and restless nights. This soothing episode explores curious botanical details about the structures and openings found in blossoms, blending science with gentle storytelling. Benjamin’s peaceful cadence transforms this historical article into a calming experience for the mind. With no whispering or hypnosis—just calm, fact-filled narration—you’ll reduce stress, quiet racing thoughts, and invite sleep. Press play, enjoy this unique reading, and drift off peacefully. Want More? Request a Topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Ad-Free Episodes: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop Sleep-Friendly Products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Join the Discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/myhGhVUhn7 This content is derived from Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892, now in the public domain. Happy sleeping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With over 200 episodes in our catalog, this podcast is for you if you're ready to crush self-doubt, conquer challenges, become stronger than ever with therapist-approved strategies that can change your life. Listen to Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast, where I read random articles to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. The Perforation of Flowers. The subject of the relations and adaptations which exist between flowers and insects does not appear to excite as much popular attention as many other branches of natural science,

which are no more interesting. Springle, Darwin, and Herman Mueller have been the chief author. in giving us our present knowledge and interest in the study. Sir John Lubbock has helped to popularize it, and Professor W. Trellies and others have carried on the work in this country. The perforation as well as the fertilization of flowers has received attention, but there is a wide field for further study for those who have leisure to pursue it, as it requires much time and patience, as well as closeness and accuracy of observation.

The accompanying figures from drawings by Mr. C. E. Faxon show a few characteristic preferations, and mutilations, and also represent two of the principal kinds of insects, which make them. Anyone interested in the subject will find an excellent brief review of the work already done, a fair biography, and a list of perforated flowers in Professor L.H. Pamel's page. on the perforation of flowers, and the transactions of the St. Louis Academy of Science, Volume 5, pages 246 to 277. The general beauty of flowers is usually not greatly marred by the perforations, except in a few cases, as when the spurs of columbines and corollas of trumpet creepers are much torn, which frequently happens.

The great object of the perforations by insects is the obtaining of the concealed nectar in an easy way. Very naturally, flowers which depend on insect agency, for fertilization rarely produce seed when punctured if they are not also entered the normal way. Perforation is only practiced by a small number of species of insects, and many, but not all of the perforators, do so because their tongues are too short to reach the nectar by entering the flower. Some obtain nectar from the same kind of flower, both in the normal way and by perforating. The chief perforators of the flowers, in this part of the continent at least, appear to be some kinds of humble bees, bombus, and carpenter bees, xylacopa. These insects have developed an unerring instinct as to the proper point to perforate the corollas from the outside in order to readily get at the nectar.

The holes made by the humble bees and by the carpenter bees are usually quite different and easily distinguished. The humble bees have short, stout, blunt jaws, ill adapted for cutting, and the perforations made by them are apparently always irregular in shape, and have jagged edges. It has been stated that the humble bees often bore through the tubes of their corollos with their maxillae. But in all cases observed by me, the mandibles were first brought into use in effecting and opening. The noise caused by the tearing is often audible for a distance of several feet. The true jaws of the carpenter bees are not any more prominent or better adapted for making clean-cut perforations than those of the carpenter bees.

than those of the humble bees. But behind the jaws there is a pair of long, sharp-pointed, knife-like, jointed organs, maxillet, which seem to be exclusively used on all ordinary occasions in making perforations. The inner edges of these maxillet are nearly straight, and when brought together they form a sharp pointed wedge-shaped plow-like instrument which makes a clean narrow longitudinal slit when it is inserted in the flower and shoved forward the slits made by it are often not readily seen because the elasticity of the tissues of sunflowers causes them to partially close again When not in use, the instrument can be folded back so that it is not conspicuous. The ordinary observer usually sees no difference between the humble bees and the carpenter bees,

but they may be readily distinguished by a little close observation. The perforation of flowers 1. Zylocopa and heads of male and female. 2. Bombus and head. 3. Decentra spectabilis showing punctures. 4. Ribis aurum. 5.

Ligustrum Ibota. 6. Esculus glabra. 7. Lonisera Involucracha. 8. Karagana Arborescence. 9.

Andromeda Japonica. 10. Budlea Japonica. 11 Mertensia Virginica 12 rhododendron

aberrescence 13 Coradalis Bulbosa no doubt in some of the recorded cases of perforations carpenter bees

have been mistaken for humble bees The heads of all northern humble bees are rather narrow retreating from the antennae toward the sides and with a more or less dense tuft of hair between the antennae. The abdomen, as well as the thorax,

is always quite densely covered with hair which may be black or yellowish or ambands of either color. With possibly one or two exceptions, the only species I have seen doing the puncturing is Bombasafinus Crescent. The carpenter bees, xylacopa, virginica, of this region have the head very broad and square in front, and with no noticeable hair between the antennae. The heads of the male and female differ strikingly. In the male, the eyes are lighter colored and are hardly half as far apart as in the female,

and the lower part of the face is yellowish-white. The female has eyes smaller, darker, and very far apart, and the whole face is perfectly black. The abdomen is broad, of a shining blue blue blue blue. black color, very sparsely covered with black hairs, except on the first large segment nearest the thorax. On this segment, they are more dense and of the same tawny color as those on the thorax, but it is particularly from the character of the head that the amateur observer of the perforators may soon learn to distinguish between a xylacopa and a bombus as they work among the flowers.

It is also interesting to know that the xylacopas are not so inclined to sting as the humble bees and the males, of course, being without stinging organs, may be handled with impunity. Among other insects, honeybees have been. have been said to perforate flowers, but authentic instances are rare of their doing, much damage or even making holes. I have only recorded a single instance, and in this a honeybee was seen to perforate the fragile spurs of impatience. When searching for nectar, they quite commonly use the perforations of other insects. Wasps and other allied insects also perforate for nectar. My only observations being a Vespa puncturing Cassandra,

Cayucula, and Andrena, perforating the spurs of Aguilagia, and Adineros for Amardatus, biting holes, close to the base on the upper side of rhododendron flowers. The holes made by some of the wasp-like insects are often more or less circular and with clean-cut edges. The ravages committed by larvae, beetles and other insects in devouring flowers, or parts of them, do not properly come under the head of perforation. The question as to the cause of the handsome corollas of the trumpet creeper, Ticoma, reticons, being so often split and torn has been accounted for in various ways in published notes on the subject.

Hummingbirds and ants have been blamed, the hummingbirds being seen. such constant visitors of these flowers, that it really seemed as though they must be the authors of the mischief. I have often watched them when they appeared as though they were pecking at the blossoms, but careful examinations, both before and after their visits, always failed to show any trace of injury. Finally, on July 26, 1890, I was rewarded by seeing a number of Baltimore Orioles vigorously pecking at and tearing open a lot of fresh blossoms, and this observation was afterward repeated. That the Oriole should do this was not surprising, considering its known habit. in relation to some other flowers.

J. G. Jack. Mr. Jack adds a list of 16 plants whose flowers he has seen punctured by the carpenter bee and 17 others whose flowers were punctured by the humble bee. He names more than 30 other flowers which he has found perforated without having seen or identified the authors of the mischief.