Flowers and Their Friends

How flowers and insects came to need each other, explained to children by a teacher who refused to talk down — “it would be very stupid indeed to try to read a book written in Arabic,” she begins, so look up every word you don't know.

Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each fact links straight to the page it comes from.

  1. There is a way to grab a nettle so it cannot sting you. The stinging hairs all slant upward, so the book advises stroking the plant the right way: "So if you stroke the nettle or draw your hand over it from root to tip, it cannot hurt you." Your hand presses the hairs flat against the stem so they cannot stick in. Read it in the book →
  2. A nettle hair is a loaded syringe that snaps its own tip off. The hairs are "very sharp and they are hollow" with poisonous juice inside; when one pierces a finger "the little turned-up end breaks off, and the poisonous juice gets into the wound and irritates and causes the finger to swell a little." The book blames Madam Nettle, who "does not wish to be taken hold of nor eaten nor touched by cows or sheep." Read it in the book →
  3. A double rose is a rose whose stamens turned into petals — and it usually sets no seed. "A double rose has fewer stamens than a single rose, and sometimes all the stamens are changed, and the rose has not a grain of pollen to help itself with." Where flowers become very double, "the vitality goes to make petals instead of essential organs, as stamens and pistils are called, and such flowers often set no seeds." Read it in the book →
  4. Chlorophyll is the only thing in the world that can make starch — and everything alive depends on it. Green stuff builds starch (and sometimes sugar and oil) from carbon taken out of the air's carbon dioxide plus hydrogen and oxygen from water sent up by the roots. "Really and truly, if it were not for starch you would not be alive to-day, and I would not, — in short nobody would." Read it in the book →
  5. A leaf breathes carbon dioxide out and eats carbon dioxide in, through the very same holes. The stomata do double duty: "the plant has to use its stomata for both lungs and mouths, — lungs to breathe out impure air, which contains carbon dioxide, and mouths to take in carbon dioxide, which is one of its principal foods." The book admits, "That seems curious." Read it in the book →
  6. The cornucopia was a bull's horn wrenched off in a wrestling match with Hercules. The river god Acheloüs, pinned by Hercules, changed himself into a serpent and then "became a bull, but this was not enough to defend him from the great strength of Hercules, who seized him by the neck and dragged him to the ground." The horn passed to the Naiads, the nymphs of brooks and fountains, who gave it to the Goddess of Plenty — "cornucopia," the book notes, means "horn of plenty." Read it in the book →
  7. The white azalea sends moths a perfumed invitation — without the paper. Pale flowers in clusters show up in the dusk, and the scent does the rest: "Instead of writing a note on a sheet of perfumed paper, the honeysuckle simply sends the perfume without the paper, and the moth understands the message." The azalea "requests the pleasure" of his company that evening, and the moth "puts on his best manners, since he cannot change his clothes." Read it in the book →
  8. The honeysuckle's tube is too deep for a bee, so the bee burgles it from behind. The bee's "tongue is too short and the tube too long," and it can reach "only the outer rim of the honey." Hence, the book suggests, "Perhaps this is why the bee so often breaks in the back way." Read it in the book →
  9. Petals may exist because ancient insects kept eating the pistils. The book pictures the first flowers as made of stamens and pistils only, with no petals, visited by insects that ate nectar, swallowed pollen "anther and all," and "in all probability frequently dined on pistil, which was very bad for the plant." Plants that secreted plenty of nectar drew the insects away from the vital parts — and got dusted with pollen in the bargain. Read it in the book →
  10. Some leaves grow a tuft of hairs around each breathing pore to keep the rain out. The book shows "four stomata, growing about a hollow filled with hairs," explaining that "these hairs prevent the outside water from running in and wetting the stomata" so the pores can keep working. Elsewhere, as in the mullein, hairs branch and "make a thick network, like felt, over the leaf." Read it in the book →
Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Flowers and Their Friends (1897) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.