Pinks and Chickweed 109 
fairly wide distribution in dry soils, and may there- 
fore be taken as the best type available. Our gardens 
will always furnish examples in the Carnation and 
Pink, if the Maiden Pink be not available. Like the 
garden forms, the wild species 
has thick, grass-shaped leaves, 
a long tubular calyx with five 
teeth, five rosy petals with 
toothed edges, ten stamens, and 
two styles. The petals spread 
away from each other, and pro- 
vide an admirable alighting-plat- 
form for insects, though there is 
no fragrance to attract them, nor 
can any except butterflies and 
moths reach the honey that is 
secreted at the bottom of the long 
tube, where stamens and petals 
join. The opening to this tube is 
so narrow that smaller insects do 
not attempt to get in, and as 
the stamens mature five at a time, they erect them- 
selves, and the anthers protrude from the tube and 
discharge their pollen outside. As the first five are 
withering, the second set take their places, and dis- 
charge their pollen. The moths or butterflies that 
come for honey are almost sure to get the pollen 
from one or other set of anthers attached to their 
hairy heads, and to carry it to other flowers. When 
the second five anthers have shed all their pollen, 
the two styles begin to lengthen, and continue to do 
so until the stigmas are far outside the tube, when 
they curl away from each other so as to occupy the 
