20 NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 
admitted into flower gardens, though I question if any species of the whole family is so gene- 
rally admired as the delicate and modest Hare-bill of the English pastures, whose unassuming 
beauty has been so often sung by rural parts. I have never seen a growing specimen of 
that plant on the Hills, though I feel sure that its introduction and naturalization there is 
desired by many, as adding another link to the many associations with our native country 
which these favoured regions already supply. There are no want of Campanulas or Bell- 
flowers in the Hill gardens, but the true Harebell or Witch’s thimbles, of the Scotch pea- 
santry, is not among them. 
This family presents one of those beautiful instances of design on the part of the 
Great Architect, so often passed unheaded by the careless observer, or if noticed, casually 
denominated “a curious provision of nature” but which cannot be too often or too forcibly 
dwelt upon by those who would teach the attributes of the Deity, by an exposition of the 
wisdom and design which meet us at every step in studying his works of creation. As it is 
simply and clearly explained by Dr. Lindley in the 14 letter of his Lady’s Botany I shall 
extract the passage entire. 
“From the base of the corolla, and consequently from the summit of the ovary, 
spring five stamens, whose filaments are broad, firm and fringed, curving inwards at the 
base and bending over the top of the ovary, as if to guard it from injury; their points touch 
the style and keep the anthers parallel and in contact with it till they shirvel up and fall 
back which happens immediately after the flower unfolds. The style is a taper, stiff column, 
about the length of the corolla and longer than the stamens. It is covered all over up to the 
tips of the stigma with stiff hairs which nature has provided to sweep the pollen out of the 
cell of the anthers as the style passes through them in lengthening. If it were not for this 
simple but effectual contrivance, as the anthers burst as soon as ever the corolla opens, their 
pollen would drop out of the nodding ftowers and be lost before the stigma was expanded and 
ready to receive the fertilizing influence ; {the hairs of the style catch the pollen and keep it 
till insects, wind, or accident brush it down upon the inverted stigmas.” 
‘Ywo genera of this order are found on the hills, the one Wahlenbergia bearing 
some resemblance to the Hare-bell of Europe, but very different, the other Campanula, of 
which there are several species, but none of them common. 
The order has been divided into two tribes or suborders, namely : 
WAHLENBERGIER, with the capsule opening on the vertex, within the circle of 
the limb of the calyx, and CampanvLeEa, with the capsule opening laterally. 
The Neilgherry Flora presents examples of both these tribes. 
WAHLENBERGIA, 
Calyx 3-5 cleft, Corolla 3-4-5 lobed above or more rarely cleft down to the middle, funnel shaped, 
subcampanulate, or tubular. Stamens 5-3 free, filaments dilated at the base. Style hairy, especially on the 
upper part. Stigmas 3-5, or 2 at length spreading, usually linear short, Capsule 5-3-2 celled, valves septifer- 
