THE FLOWERS OF BRAZIL 



Strike at the insect, like delicate mechanical hammers, until the 

 visitor is completely dusted with pollen. 



Other flowers emit whole clouds of pollen as soon as an insect 

 approaches them. The Posequeriae are Brazilian plants, and among 

 them is the "Ara^a do brejo." The flowers are like those of the honey- 

 suckle; they are white, and fragrant, and adapted for fertilization 

 by insects with long trunks. The anthers are emptied into the flower, 

 where the pollen adheres into a ball. If a butterfly touches the 

 flower, this ball flies between the filaments, which spring asunder, 

 and strikes the proboscis, to which it clings; at the same time the 

 tubular part of the corolla closes, so that the butterfly cannot 

 introduce its proboscis. If it wishes to quench its thirst it must go 

 to another flower which has been visited some hours previously; 

 here the way will be open to the nectary; the butterfly can insert 

 its proboscis, and in doing so it rubs the ball off* on to the stigma. 

 In this ingenious manner self-fertilization is avoided. There are 

 Orchids too which have catapult devices, and one species (Gatasetum) 

 can shoot its pollinia to a distance of a yard when touched. One 

 can imagine with what violence they strike the head of an insect ! 



We cannot in these pages examine these miracles of Nature more 

 thoroughly; they are so various and complex that Darwin was able 

 to write a whole volume on the fertilization of the Orchids. But 

 there are two mutual relations of which I must say something, for 

 they represent the highest point of the co-operation of flowers and 

 insects, and concern groups of plants of which many are native in 

 Brazil. 



A family of plants which is distributed throughout the tropics is 

 that of the Fig-trees, of which the South European Fig and the 

 Indian Rubber-tree, a favourite indoor plant, are familiar to 

 Europeans. Everyone has eaten a fig, but few will have examined 

 the succulent fruit more closely, and discovered that the fig is a 

 composite fruit, quite different in its structure from a pear. If we 

 cut a fig in half we see that it contains a hollow space, and that 

 this hollow is lined with a vast number of tiny fruits. The fig, indeed, 

 may be compared to an urn. Before the fruit is formed there lie, 

 at the bottom of the urn, countless little stigmas, whose pistils peep 

 out like so many threads, and near the narrow mouth are tiny 

 stamens with their pollen (Fig. 15). Into this urn creep little wasps, 

 members of the Gall-wasp family, which by means of their stings 



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