PRIMROSES 165 
present, but whichever is posted at the top of the tube, 
the other occupies a station half-way down! The tongue 
of a bee diving down a tube 
where the stamens are half-way 
up is dusted with pollen in the 
middle. When the honey is 
finished the insect rolls up its 
trunk, like the spring of a watch, 
and the pollen is folded with it. 
After going through the flowers 
of one plant it goes to another, 
which may happen to have the TWO TYPES OF PRIMROSE 
FLOWER. 
stamens at the top. When it 
thrusts down its tongue the latter unrolls and finds the 
pistil at the same point where stamens had dusted it 
before, and the pollen is now rubbed off its trunk. 
Meanwhile the bee’s head has been all among the new 
anthers at the top of the tube, and at its next visit to a 
flower with a stigma showing, it will fertilise that in its 
turn. At the same time the pollen may also fall down 
from the top of the tube upon the stigma below, so that 
self-fertilisation is provided for if necessary. 
The same need for self-fertilisation helps to explain the 
early-closing habits of the Pimpernel, for its stamens 
- spread out far beyond the pistil, as a rule; but when the 
flower shuts, the petals knock off a little of the pollen 
and store it in the centre of the flower. When the 
corolla falls off it always chooses the time when it is 
closed, and so the pollen is dragged over the pistil, and 
if no friendly insect has done the work beforehand some 
seed will thus be formed. 
~The Water Violet, which has no connection with the 
true Violets, is a close ally of the Primroses, and if you 
