1903-1904-] Rarer Woodland Plants of Scotland. 83 



only facing obliquely down ; the style is no longer vertical, but 

 with this new position of the flower points also obliquely 

 downwards, and the stigma is thus brought underneath some 

 of the anthers. The filaments are still curved in the shape of 

 the letter S, but in the opposite direction to that held by them 

 at the commencement of the flowering period ; the anthers are 

 therefore inverted, and have their faces directly downwards. 

 The least shaking of the slender stem is now sufficient to 

 cause a fall of pollen, with which the viscid stigma cannot 

 fail to get sprinkled." ^ In July the buds for the succeeding 

 year's flowers are noticeable at the extremity of the shoots. 

 So ready do they appear that one would scarcely believe that 

 twelve months or so will elapse before they open. The leaves 

 are quite glabrous, spathulate, with obtuse apices. They are 

 somewhat thin in texture, and suggest those of a shrub. The 

 small cauline ones are scooped, and serve as water receptacles. 

 (Plate VIII. illustrates the above-mentioned phases of flower 

 development, &c.) 



Pyrola, a diminutive of Pyrus, has not been so inaptly 

 applied to these plants as some think. Some, for instance, as 

 Pyrola aecunda, are much like seedlings of Pyrus — super- 

 ficially, of course. The same may be said of Moneses, and 

 still more of Chimiphila, an allied Continental and American 

 genus, which one writer has described as a " Pyrola trying to 

 become an Arbutus." The leaves of Moneses are more gradu- 

 ally attenuated at the base than in the native Pyrolas. 



Moneses, like Pyrola, increases vegetatively by underground 

 stems, that send up rosettes of foliage leaves. The life of each 

 aerial shoot extends from two to three years. Thus shoots 

 of this year's growth should be found with flower-buds in the 

 summer of 1905, and flower, seed, and perish in 1906. 



Accompanying these notes is a plate illustrating a small 

 portion of a Scots pine wood, beneath which Moneses grows. 

 It has interesting points. Once the site of a sphagnum moor, 

 it is now a typical example of a pine-forest on an unfavourable 

 peat-moss formation. Before the trees seen in the photograph 

 occupied the ground a much older series existed, some of which 

 still exist hard by. (See Plate IX.) 



The companions of Moneses are Erica Tetralix, spreading in 



■ ' The Natural History of Plants,' vol. ii. p. 382. 



