ON THE FERTILIZATION OF CLAYTONIA. 51 
Contributions to the Natural History of the Flower.—No. I. 
Fertilization of Claytonia, Phacelia, and Monarda. By J.C. 
Wits, M.A., Frank Smart Student in Botany of Gonville 
and Caius College, Cambridge. (Communicated by Francis 
Darwin, F.R.S., F.L.S.) 
[Read 16th February, 1893.] 
(Prats TI.) 
Tuis paper contains the results of various observations, made 
during the summers of 1890-1-2, upon plants growing in the 
Botanic Gardens, Cambridge. The species not being in their 
native habitat, no attempt was made to form lists of their insect 
visitors; but as the author hopes shortly to visit the western 
United States, whence several of the plants here described have 
come, this and other defects may be remedied hereafter. 
The plants described belong to three genera, viz. Claytonia 
(2 species), Phacelia (5), and Monarda (3). 
CLAYTONIA. 
Two species were examined, viz. C. alsinoides, Sims, and C. si- 
birica, Linn., and were found to agree so closely in all but a few 
minor points, that they may be described together. Meehan * 
and Robertson ¢ have discussed the fertilization of C. virginica: 
the former has pointed out the way in which the sleep-movements 
cause autogamy, but has overlooked the protandry, which has 
been described by Robertson. Unfortunately the writer has not 
been able to consult the original paper, and the only abstract 
(in Just’s ‘“ Jahresbericht”’) merely mentions the protandry, 
without describing the mechanism. Both the present species 
are protandrous, with occasional self-fertilization by the sleep- 
movements. 
The inflorescence is a loose monochasial cyme,which straightens 
out in such a way as to keep the open flowers facing upwards 
or nearly so. The calyx consists of two large green persistent 
sepals, enclosing the claws of the five petals ; the limb of each 
petal, which is bifid, spreads out over the calyx, almost at right 
* “The Sleep of Plants as an Agent in Self-fertilisation,” Proc. Acad. Nat. 
Sci. Philadelphia, 1876, p. 84. 
t “Flowers and Insects. II.,” Bot. Gazette, xiy. 1889, p. 172. 3 
E 
