354 REV. GEORGE HENSLOW ON THE 
that a self-fertilizing form of Dianthus was artificially produced analogous to the garden 
and sweet peas, which appear to have become so in this country on their own account. : 
^ Several genera in this Order have both conspicuous and probably all proterandrous 
flowers, as well as inconspicuous and self-fertilizing species. Thus, for example, while 
the large-flowered Cerastium arvense and Stellaria Holostea are both proterandrous, the 
small-flowered C. glomeratum and Stellaria media Ze, are, self-fertilizing. With regard 
to C. glomeratum, it is perhaps worth mentioning that the flowers often remain very 
imperfectly open ; and on one occasion, in June 1876, I found a number of plants in an 
exposed meadow with all the flower-buds actually eleistogamous, although exposed to 
full sunlight and an intensely high temperature. Stellari ia media and Spergula arvensis, 
although they usually expand their blossoms in sunlight if it be warm, yet in January 
I have found them self-fertilizing abundantly but with the buds completely closed. In 
all these cases the filaments are bent down over the ovary, with their anthers in close 
proximity to the stigmas. (Tab. XLIV. figs. 8 a, b, & 9.) 
Stellaria media may show analogous features. Thus in a larch-wood I found 
specimens permanently cleistogamous and apetalous and with three stamens only; on 
the same plant were flowers with rudimentary petals and with four stamens. The petals 
being the last organs to be developed are often the first to go, the order of development 
being as follows :—First stage, calyx, pistil, stamens, corolla; secondly, the pistil is 
equal to the stamens in height; thirdly, the corolla, which has long delayed, starts 
again. The same order occurs in the self-fertilizing Sagina apetala and Polycarpon 
tetraphyllum. So also in Spergularia marina (subsp. neglecta), the order of development 
is—calyx, pistil, stamens opposite the sepals, stamens opposite the petals, corolla. The 
ten stamens close round the pistil, and the anthers dehisce while the bud is opening. ` ` 
I have already remarked that the reduction of the size of the corolla, with often a loss 
of colour, if not an immediate cause, is at least closely correlated with self-fertilization, 
and that as some of the stamens are often entirely arrested, so too may the corolla be 
arrested as well. This will account for some species of this Order becoming apetalous, 
as the genus Sagina, as also Herniaria and Scleranthus of the Paronychiez. Thence 
we may pass to the incomplete members of the group called Cyclospermere, and so on, 
as I believe, to all other members of the Monochlamydez: and Achlamydee of Dico- 
_tyledonous Angiosperms, that the arrest of the corolline whorl, indicated by the stamens 
being opposite to the sepals, has issued from a correlation with self-fertilization. Further 
remarks, however, will be added when I treat specially of these divisions. ; 
Of the Illecebrace:e, the few that I have examined are self-fertilizing, often in unopened 
buds, as. Paronychia Bonariensis, Corrigiola littoralis, Scleranthus annuus, and Herniaria | 
glabra; and I would venture to express it as my opinion that this Order is "simply a 
degraded form of Caryophyllaceze by becoming self-fertilizing. If I may offer as a 
suggestion of the process how it came about, I should imagine that seeds of certain 
. insect-visiting conspicuously flowering species became located where they were neglected 
by insects; and having never entirely lost the power of self-fertilization, as is the case 
with Stellaria Holostea &c., which is partially proterandous only, reacquired it, but 
with the ECH reduction of the size of the corolla, its colours and also of the eee 
