PREFACE TO THE REPRINT OF 1884. 



valuable work on caprification an account of the relation 

 of the sexes in the cultivated fig and the caprificus. 



* 



Heteranthy. 



The existence of different kinds of anthers in 

 homostyled flowers is of interest as bearing on hetero- 

 stylism. 



F. Ludwig (<Bot. Centralblatt/ 1880, pp. 246 and 

 1210) gives an account of the heteranthy of Plantago 

 major, of which two forms exist, one with brown, the 

 other with yellow anthers; the latter plants are much 

 rarer than the brown-anthered form. In another com- 

 munication to the same journal (1880, p. 861), he de- 

 scribes the heteranthy of Poterium sanguisorba, and 



of a number of grasses, e. g. Lolium dactylis, Festuca, 

 Air a. 



F. Miiller (' Nature,' xxiv., 1881, p. 307) has made 

 the curious observation that in the Melastomaceous 

 Heeria, sp., there are two sets of anthers: (1) yellow 

 ones serving as plunder to bees; (2) red ones so placed 

 as to subserve cross-fertilisation. 



H. Miiller ('Nature/ 1882, p. 30) showed that in 

 Tinnantia undat ( Commelynaceae ) , as in Heeria, two 

 sets of anthers exist ; one set which attract pollen-seek- 

 ing insects, the other which cover the insect with pollen. 

 The upper stamens have yellow tufts of hair, which 

 (as in Tradescantia) serve as supports for visiting in- 

 sects. The pollen-grains are smaller in the upper sta- 

 mens. In Commelyna ccelestis and communis there is 

 somewhat similar arrangement. 



In a species of Melastoma, which has also two sets 

 of stamens, H. O. Forbes (' Nature/ 1882, p. 386) saw 

 bees going straight to the yellow stamens, i. e. to those 

 which serve as an attraction. The vellow anthers have 

 the smaller pollen-grains, but those from the other set 



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