92 FERTILIZATION OF SPRING FLOWERS ON THE YORKSHIRE COAST. 



expected to become Fellows, thus making way for those for whom 

 the honour of Associate was originally intended. 



Although Whitehead's attention was chiefly directed to mosses, 

 it was not confined to them. It will be remembered that he was 

 one of the party which discovered Carex ornithopoda in Miller's 

 Dale, Derbyshire, thus adding that plant to the British flora ; the 

 specimens from which the figure and description in this Journal for 

 1875 (t. 164) were taken were furnished by him. He also added 

 Cham Braunii to our flora in August, 1883 (see Journ. But. 1883, 

 249). At this time he was working, with other local botanists, at 

 a Flora of Ashton-under-Lyne and district, which was published in 

 1888. His principal publications in connection with his special 

 subject were, two lists of mosses — one of those of Ashton-under- 

 Lyne (Xcdiu-alist, 1886, pp. 85-100), the other of the Mosses of 

 North Derbyshire, in this Journal for 1894, pp. 193-201 ; the latter 

 was locally printed with a few additions and corrections. 



James Britten. 



FERTILIZATION OF SPRING FLOWERS ON THE 

 YORKSHIRE COAST. 



By I. H. BuRKiLL, M.A., F.L.S. 



The observations contained in this paper only extend over two 

 years. It had been the writer's intention that for a space of 

 ten years, if possible, observations should be made in each successive 

 spring; but this had become impossible. As these first two seasons 

 proved so very different in climatic conditions, the notes made are 

 not without interest. Those for 1895 furnished the material for a 

 table published in the Annah of Botamj.* 



No flowers are so at the mercy of climatic conditions as are 

 those of early spring. They are the pioneers of the season, and, 

 as pioneers, meet with difficulties which do not endanger those 

 of June and July ; yet they avoid by their early flowering the 

 severest of the competition for insect visitors, and some apparently 

 profit by it. Miiller remarks: " Stellaria media has the greatest 

 chance of cross-fertilization in early spring, for before that time no 

 insects are on the wing (in S. Germany), and afterwards many more 

 attractive flowers compete with it."t And his observations confirm 

 the statement. 



Winter is a wedge driven, in our hemisphere, into the seasons 

 from the north ; in warm regions a slight barrier, in arctic regions 

 an impassable barrier. With us autumn and spring may exchange 

 floras to some extent. Instances of autumn-flowering of Corylus 

 Avellana, Mercurialis perennis, and others, are familiar to us, and, 

 on the other hand, in warm open winters the unprotected flower- 



* Vol. ix. p. 273 (1895). 



t Fertilization of Floioera, -p. 186; London, 1883. 



