14 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST 



Hellebore foetidus is another rare plant that I found for the 

 first time at Amberley. It is nearly related to Hellebore niger (the 

 Christmas rose of our gardens), and, like it, has its petals changed 

 into little nectaries. If you look closely into either of these 

 flowers, you will find that what at first sight appear to be petals, 

 are only sepals^ and that the true petals are like minute green 

 pockets surrounding the stamens. These, with the stamens, soon 

 fall off, leaving the carpels standing alone in the centre of the 

 sepals. There is one other wild Hellebore, namely, H viridis^ 

 but neither are truly indigenous, having been probably introduced 

 into English gardens during the middle ages, when they were 

 much used medicinally. It grows in a wood near Box, and is 

 very plentiful on some waste ground to the left of Selsley Hill. 

 Minchinhampton Common is remarkably rich in Orchidaceous 

 plants. I was too early to find many in flower, but was pleased to 

 see my favourite Ophrys muscifera. It is of a purple-brown hue, hav- 

 ing on the lower part of the corolla (termed the labellum) a square 

 patch of pale blue. Even the antennas are represented by the upper 

 petals, and anyone not knowing the flower would certainly take it to 

 be an insect perched on the stalk. I have found it on the Surrey 

 Hills with as many as eight or nine flowers open at different intervals 

 up the stem, when it is a most curious sight. Nearly all flowers 

 are dependent upon insects for the fertflisation of their seeds ; 

 whilst many are most curiously armed against the visits 

 of creeping insects, for these would, if able to get at the 

 flowers, in some cases eat them, and in others rob them of their 

 pollen to no purpose. Those flowers, therefore, that only want to 

 attract bees or other flying insects have their stems, leaves, and 

 calyx covered by a paUsade of hairs, sometimes placed with the 

 points inclined out or down, so as to form a sort of " chevaicx-de- 

 frise^^ thus keeping off intruders, as we do by our fences and 

 spiked palings. It is only under the microscope that some of 

 these defences are revealed. The leaf of the garden Deutzia {D. 

 scabra) is a remarkable instance. Here the leaves and stem are 

 covered by the most beautiful little stellate crystals of silica, whose 

 sharp points would doubtless incommode the pedestrian insect- 

 tramps as much as broken glass would those of our own species. 



Many people look upon the scents and colours of flowers as 



