Pinks and Chickweed 113 
tion will take place. The honey is secreted by yellow 
glands at the base of the outer five stamens. Whether 
any of the seven British species of Stellaria are or 
are not in the direct line of evolution leading to 
the Pinks and Campions, a consideration of their 
forms and structure will show that they are not far 
off—at most a collateral branch, but more probably 
in the direct line. The Greater Stitchwort occasion- 
ally calls attention to this probability by appearing 
with its petals jagged at the edges hke those of 
the Pink, instead of with the usual neat and simple 
division ; sometimes, too, one row of stamens becomes 
converted into petals, and the flower is “double,” as 
in the cultivated Pinks. 
The very similar Lesser Stitchwort (S. gram- 
imea) looks as though it were a starved form of 
the Greater Stitchwort, due to the drier situations it 
affects; but it has several distinguishing features. 
Here we see the beginning of the tendency to join the 
sepals into a cylindrical tube; these are united at 
their base only in this species, nevertheless they form 
a short conical tube. This indicates that the Lesser 
has possibly been once more Pink-like than the 
Greater Stitchwort, though the petals are now actually 
as short as the sepals, for there would scarcely be the 
tendency to form a tube except in a conspicuous 
insect-fertilised flower. Two other species share this 
tendency to a tubular calyx, and of these the Marsh 
Stitchwort (S. palustris) has the petals larger than 
the sepals, and the Bog Stitchwort (S. uliginosa) 
has them smaller. 
The very familiar Chickweed (S. media) is pro- 
bably nearer the original type than those we have 
