118 THE FLOWERING PLANT. 
Sedges, again, possess minute flowers, often unisexual. The 
perianth, when present, is reduced to bristles or scales, the 
stamens have slender filaments, and there are two or three 
spreading roughened stigmas. 
Wild plantains are all characterized by the following features, 
which, after what has been said, will speak for themselves. 
Flowers small, green, bisexual, arranged in spikes (or heads), 
proterogynous. Sepals four. Corolla salver-shaped, with four 
small lobes alternating with the sepals. Stamens four, epipeta- 
lous, alternating with corolla lobes, possessing long slender fila- 
ments and large versatile anthers. Style long, covered with hairs 
and with two stigmatic lines. As might be expected from such 
a description all wild plantains are pollinated mainly or entirely 
by the wind. 
Insect-pollinated (entomophilous) flowers are as conspicuous as 
wind-pollinated ones are insignificant. They are characterized by 
some or all of the following features. Perianth brightly coloured, 
often irregular; pollen grains mostly rough or sticky; odorous 
and nectar-producing. A modern botanist graphically describes 
the state of things thus :—“ The animate [pollinating] agent .. . 
as a general rule is an insect. This must be allured to the 
flower ; and this accordingly appeals to either sight or smell by 
brilliant colours and by attractive scents. These colours and 
these scents draw the insect to a flower from a distance ; but by 
themselves they would be but empty gratifications, unprofitable 
to insect and to flower alike. Something more substantial must 
be afforded, something that will prevent the insect from merely 
loitering about the flower in idle satisfaction, and that will induce 
it to probe the recesses of the blossom, and in so doing to transfer 
the pollen of one flower to the stigma of another. This further 
allurement is addressed to the palate; and though in some cases 
it is nothing more than the pollen itself, in most it is supplied by 
the secretion of a sweet fluid, the so-called nectar. 
‘“ Now Nature, who at first sight often appears a prodigal, is 
always found, on closer examination, to be the most rigid of 
economists. If no insects are to be allured, she gives ... no 
nectar ; she cuts off the bright petals, and suppresses the attrac- 
tive odours. Nor even when a bait is wanted will she give it 
one minute sooner than necessary. The brilliancy, the scent, 
and the nectar are only furnished when the flower is ready for 
its guests, and requires their’ presence ; just as a thrifty house- 
wife lights her candles when the first guest is at the door. The 
mature bud is furnished with no such attractions, Still more, 
even when the flower is mature, when its pollen is ready for 
transference or its stigma for pollination, when all the allure 
