Abstract
THE attraction of hive-bees to the flowers of the Tree of Heaven, recorded by Dr. R. Melville in Nature recently1, has also been noted by me in Oxford. On July 14, 1944, I was awakened at dawn by a continuous high-pitched whining hum, like that of a dynamo, in the tall trees outside this Museum, and found it to be caused by thousands of Apis mellifica which were visiting the male flowers. The latter are obscure and small-petalled, in large panicles, and give off a strong musky scent. Dr. Nicholas Polunin, who kindly identified the flowers as Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle, remarked that this kind of disagreeable smell is more commonly associated with fly-pollinated flowers such as certain Umbelliferae. But I searched several branches at different times of day, and found practically no winged insects on the flowers except hive-bees, apart from a few small ladybird beetles.
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