324 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



[1887. 



Fig. I. 



Fig. 4. 



ing flowers usually fall without perfecting a legume. It may be 



noted tliat the legumes and calyx 

 are difterent in these two instances, 

 Fig. 1, shows the petaliferous and Fig. 

 2 the apetalous, forms. Thus Ave 

 have three forms of legumes on the 

 one plant, the hypogeous, which is 

 short, thick and roundish at the end, 

 Fiff. 4, and these two now described. 

 The apetalous flowers can be 

 scarcely classed as cleistogene, for 

 there is certainly no pollen in many 

 of them. In the few score I ex- 

 amined at this time, a few undeveloped stamens could be detected 

 here and there. In the absence of positive demonstration, I should 

 rather regard these as pistillate flowers, receiving their pollen 

 from the petaliferous ones. 



I do not find the flowers are adapted to cross-fertilization, except 

 in the monoecious manner indicated. In the petaliferous cases the 

 flowers are diadelphous one stamen being wholly distinct from 

 the rest. These are thoroughly united into a tube for very nearly 

 their full length, little more than the connective of the anthers being 

 free. The pistil, running up this tube, is about the exact length, 

 and the stigma is imbedded in the thick mass of stamens,' and com- 

 pletely covered by own-pollen. It is evident that no foreign pollen 

 can possibly reach the stigma. So tightly held together is the mass of 

 filaments, that when the fertilized pistil commences to expand, the 

 ovarium bursts out at the base of the column, and as 

 it grows, draws down through the staminate column, 

 the style, this giving the stigma another full dose of 

 its own-plleu. (Fig. 8.) It is a remarkable adapta- 

 tion for self fertilization. Besides this close cover- 

 FiG. 3. iug of the stigma by the stamens and column, the keel 

 embraces the stamens so closely that even the "tickling" of the flower 

 with a pin, simulating the action of an insect, fails to set them free. 

 As soon as the ovarium begins to grow, and the flowering stage has 

 reached the period illustrated in Fig. 3, the petals fall apart, and 

 the pollen is liberated for the wind to carry it elsewhere. 



Persistent Avatching failed to note any insects at Avork, but numer- 

 ous blossoms of Impatiens fulva, possibly afforded the greater attrac- 



