Lee. — On Glossostisma elatiuoides. 109 



*o 



The experiment can be repeated an indefinite number of 

 times, I believe. The pistil will not remain over the stamens 

 if pushed there. 



It would seem as if there is a spring of some sort — if one 

 can call it by that name — in the pistil, but as yet the micro- 

 scope has not revealed it to me. 



I am inclined to the view that this movement of the pistil 

 is intended to produce cross-fertilisation, or to produce ferti- 

 lisation at all. An insect alighting upon the pistil would pro- 

 bably cause it to turn back and so expose the pollen ; this 

 would be carried away and deposited on the next flower visited. 

 The spikes with which the pistil is studded would facilitate 

 this. I have, whilst examining the pistil, found grains of 

 pollen adhering. 



The pistil would close after the insect's visit, thus preserving 

 the remaining pollen. 



I noticed on the 30th January that all the flowers I got 

 and examined had their pistils turned back, and so remained 

 until the flower died. 



After reading some papers by Mr. G. M. Thompson on 

 cleistogamic plants, I have thought that this plant might be 

 one in which self-fertilisation takes place, and until that had 

 taken place the pistil remained over the stamens, and that 

 when the organ had fulfilled its function it lay back for good. 

 Upon further observation of a single flower, I noticed that, 

 "when water w^as poured round the plant so as to completely 

 submerge it, the pistil, which was turned back upon the petals, 

 closed over as the water reached it, and remained so, covering 

 the stamens until the water was removed, when it again 

 opened back. 



A question still remains : Would pollen deposited upon the 

 outside of the pistil fertilise the plant ? If so, the insect 

 carrying pollen would be obliged to leave some in opening the 

 next flower visited. 



The peculiar position of the pistil may be a wonderful con- 

 trivance for preserving the pollen from being w^ashed away 

 "when the plant is submerged, as must often be the case. 



The foregoing note has been drawn up as containing certain 

 points of information, botanical description, &c., on this curious 

 little plant which are not noticed in Mr. Cheeseman's paper, 

 in vol. X. of the "Transactions,"* on the springing-back of the 

 pistil. This feature is also of so exceptional a character that 

 even repeated accounts of it are interesting. 



* " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. x., art. xlvii., p. 353. 



