124 THE FLOWER 



day when pollinated by diurnal, at night when by nocturnal, 

 insects, — may be illustrated from a flower described by 

 Sir John Lubbock.^ It is the Nottingham Catchfly, a 

 British and European plant related to our Chickweeds 

 and Pinks. " Each flower lasts three days, or rather three 

 nights. The stamens are ten in number, arranged in two 

 sets ; the one set standing in front of the sepals, the other 

 in front of the petals. Like other night flowers, it is 

 white, and opens toward evening, when it also becomes 

 very fragrant. The first evening, toward dusk, the five 

 stamens in front of the sepals grow very rapidly for about 

 two hours, so that they emerge from the flower ; the pollen 

 ripens, and is exposed by the bursting of the anther. So 

 the flower remains through the night, very attractive to, 

 and much visited by, moths. Toward three in the morn- 

 ing the scent ceases, the anthers begin to shrivel up or 

 drop off, the filaments turn themselves outward, so as to 

 be out of the way, while the petals, on the contrary, begin 

 to roll themselves up, so that by daylight they close the 

 aperture of the flower, and present only their brownish 

 green under sides to view ; which, moreover, are thrown 

 into numerous wrinkles. Thus, by the morning's light, 

 the flower has all the appearance of being faded. It has 

 no smell, and the honey is covered over by the petals. 

 So it remains all day. Toward evening, however, every- 

 thing is changed. The petals unfold themselves ; by eight 

 o'clock the flower is as fragrant as before, the second set 

 of stamens have rapidly grown, their anthers are open, 

 and the pollen again exposed. By morning the flower is 

 again ' asleep,' the anthers are shriveled, the scent has 

 ceased, and the petals rolled up as before. The third 

 evening, again the same process occurs, but this time it 

 is tlie pistil which grows : the long spiral stigmas on the 

 third evening take the position which on the previous 

 two had been occupied by anthers, and can hardly fail to 

 be dusted by moths with pollen brought from another 

 flower." 



1 Lubbock, "Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves," Macmillan, 1894, p. 40. 



