IIO ALFRED W. BENNETT [AUGUST 
the most familiar and most striking is the abundance of the flowers, 
growing either in great masses or remarkable for their large size and 
brightness of colouring. This is exhibited in various ways. In the 
first place, we may compare the alpine with the lowland species of 
genera which are represented in both floras—for example, Aquilegia 
alpina with our columbine; Dianthus alpinus or glacialis with our 
pinks ; Sewtellaria alpina with our skull-cap ; Bartsia alpina with our 
British species ; Myosotis alpestris with our forget-me-nots ; the Edel- 
weiss with our cudweeds; and many others that might be mentioned. 
Or we may take genera that are exclusively or chiefly alpine, as far as 
the European flora is concerned :—Gentiana, Primula, Pedicularis, 
Rhododendron, Soldanella, Saxifraga, Sempervivum, etc. These are 
among the most familiar glories of the alpine flora. Or, again, we may 
take genera common to high and low altitudes, but in which the alpine 
species are characterised by the small flowers being so crowded 
together as to make the masses of them very conspicuous from a 
distance, such as. Arabis, Silene, Moehringia, Draba, and many others. 
The advantage to alpine plants of the conspicuousness of the flower 
is obvious. Although not so dependent as lowland plants on the pro- 
duction of seeds for the perpetuation of the species—the great majority 
of them being perennials—yet, like many of our own perennial plants, 
trees and others, they do, as a rule, produce abundance of ripe seeds, 
and for the carriage of pollen from the anthers to the stigmas they are 
largely dependent on the visits of insects. Now, at great altitudes 
winged insects are comparatively scarce, and it is obvious that a con- 
spicuous and far-seen sign as to the locality where they can find their 
honey must greatly increase the number of flower-visits which they can 
pay in the course of a sunny afternoon. Mr. G. W. Bulman has 
recently, in the pages of this journal,’ ventured the opinion that four of 
the keenest-sighted naturalists who have ever studied the phenomena 
of plant physiology—Darwin, Wallace, Lubbock, and Hermann Miiller 
—are all mistaken in their interpretation of the function of colour in 
flowers, and that insects are attracted to flowers mainly by the sense 
of smell rather than by the sense of sight. My own observations, 
which have extended over many years, lead me to range myself un- 
hesitatingly on the side of those distinguished names. That insects 
are, to a certain extent, attracted by the odour of flowers is undoubted. 
But in the Alps this can only come into play to a very subordinate 
extent. Very few alpine plants are strongly scented; and, if they 
were, owing to the strong winds that almost constantly prevail at those 
ereat heights, the scent would be almost useless in indicating its source 
to insects. In the bright colour and large size or close crowding of 
the flowers, we have, on the other hand, an obvious and admirable 
adaptation to this end. 
But it does not by any means follow that the sole purpose of the 
1 Natural Science, Feb. 1899. 
