158 TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
half are the pistil and four quaint stamens, with fat, 
purse-like anthers of purple-spotted yellow. The pistil, 
if the anthers are still fat, will not be ripe, but if they 
have withered away, the stigma becomes more prominent, 
and exhibits a kind of mouth. The bee’s back as he 
crawls up to the honey touches this stigma, and, if he 
has been previously charged, the flower’s work is done. 
But the bee’s is not, for, still anxious for more honey 
and pollen, he goes to the next flower on the spike. 
Here the fat anthers are just shedding their fruit. Part 
has fallen on the hairs of the platform, and all he can get 
of this the bee stores in the pollen baskets you may see at 
his knee-cap. But the shaking his ponderous head gives 
to the bell brings down fresh showers upon his back, 
ensuring that he shall earn the flower’s hospitality. But 
suppose that the summer should be steadily and hope- 
lessly wet, so that for several days together the bees 
stay at home. Such a supposition may seem difficult 
after such glorious summers as those of recent years, 
but the rain may soon pay us all back double. What 
will the Foxglove do then? Well, it is quite pre- 
pared for that also, for most of the plants of our present 
group, although they seem to think it better to have 
pollen from another plant, or rather, to exchange it, 
are still quite capable of fertilising themselves if they 
cannot do better. The anthers have usually a fair number 
of grains clinging to them, and if no bees have called, 
the hairy mat on the lower half will be packed with | 
pollen. When the plant feels that the stigma has been 
ripe long enough, and can wait no longer for possible 
bees, the whole corolla loosens at the base, and slides 
down the style of the pistil, bearing its pollen along with 
it. Some of it is pretty sure to touch the stigma, and to 
