Flora's Go-betweens: Nectar, Insects, and Flowers in the Romantic Natural History of Pollination

Abstract

A boundary-crossing substance connecting flowers and insects, nectar occupied a contested position during the Romantic period, provoking debates regarding who stood most to profit from it: insects or the plants themselves? Such questions also surrounded another floral substance: pollen mediated between the plant and animal kingdoms, constituting not only a means of plant reproduction but also a food for bees. Despite these shared qualities, a direct link between nectar and the dissemination of pollen was not made until the late eighteenth century, when Kölreuter and Sprengel separately discovered the secret of their connection. Taking into consideration speculations on nectar in the writings of Erasmus Darwin, as well as discussions regarding plant-insect analogy, competition, sexuality, and nutrition, I describe how naturalists came to understand (or refused to understand) the relationships governing pollination, in the process confronting a nature far more hybrid and mediated than they initially imagined.