on several species of Avistolochia, that when flies enter the chamber 
formed by the lower part of the perianth, and become dusted with 
pollen, in their efforts to escape again from the chamber they come 
into contact with these hairs, and thus lose, before they pass to 
another flower, almost every grain of pollen. In A. barbata at 
least 600, and in A. ormnithocephala about 6,000 pollen-grains 
would be required for the fertilisation of all the ovules 
in an ovary. Out of a very large number of flies captured in these 
chambers, only a very few showed the presence of even a small 
number of pollen-grains adhering to them. On the other hand, both 
these two species and A. elegans are abundantly fertile when pollinated 
with their own pollen. He concludes, therefore, that these species at 
least are self-pollinated. Herr Burck also points out the interesting 
fact that in Avistolochia the true stigma and style are abortive, and 
that the so-called stigmatic surface consists of the connectives of the 
anthers which have coalesced by their sides intoa cup, are provided on 
their margins with papilla, and have assumed the functions of a 
stigma. In the instances just named, and in others of the same kind, 
it is an allowable hypothesis that the bright colour or sweet scent of 
the flower is a survival from cross-pollinated ancestors which has 
now lost its meaning. But this will not apply in other instances. 
The hazel and the larch have, it is true, unisexual and therefore 
necessarily cross-pollinated flowers. But they are not visited by 
insects, and are universally regarded as typical examples of wind- 
fertilised plants. What, then, is the object of the bright red colour of 
the styles of the one and of the scales of the opening cones of the 
other? It cannot be a survival, since the Corylacee and the Conifere 
are both unquestionably archaic forms of life. Bright colours, indeed, 
appeared very early in the evolution of plant-life. How are we 
to explain the brilliant red of the sporange of Sphagnum ; or the bright 
pigment of the antherid or “globule” of the Characee; or the 
brilliant colour of species of Peziza or Boletus? Does Nature love 
beauty for its own sake? 
Prominent among those who advocate the anti-Darwinian view 
of the prevalence of self-pollination, is Mr. Thos. Meehan, of Phila- 
delphia, a botanist of great experience in the cultivation of plants. 
He adduces a large number of American plants in which he asserts 
this mode of pollination to be the rule, among others, in Amsonia 
Tabernemontana, belonging to the Apocynacee, in which the flowers 
are showy and abundantly fertile, but their structure is such that 
no insect, not even a thrips, can gain entrance to the nectary. The 
mouth of the corolla-tube is so densely matted with hairs that if 
the pollen-clothed tongue of an insect were thrust through the mass, 
it would be completely cleansed; nor is there any room for the 
tongue to pass the capitate stigma. To effect pollination the anthers 
curve over and rest upon the stigma. Other examples of habitual 
self-pollination are given in Symplocarpus fetidus, belonging to the 
