214 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
whorls of four arranged crosswise. The delicately 
rose-tinted blossoms are grouped in a spreading head 
from the extremity of the stem, and are all drooping. 
There are four sepals, and four lobes to the mouth of 
the corolla. Within, the organs are arranged much 
as in the case of Arbutus, but the stamens are eight 
in number, the anthers tailed and opening by pores 
at their sides near the tip. As they stand around the 
pistil the pores of one stamen are closed by pressure 
against its neighbours, and the sixteen anther-tails 
radiate after the manner of the horns in Arbutus, and 
get in the way of the bee’s tongue that is seeking 
the nectar-glands. Pressure against any one of these 
tails breaks the ring, and a number of the anthers 
are able to discharge their pollen. The stigma 
occupies the mouth of the corolla as in Arbutus, and 
both anthers and stigma mature simultaneously. 
Tn all the Heaths the corolla is persistent—that is, it 
does not fall off when fertilisation has been effected, 
nor does it wither up, but it keeps its shape until 
long after the seeds are ripe, though it loses colour. 
The Fringed Heath (4. ciliaris) is a species found 
only in the counties of Cornwall and Dorset. Its 
leaves and sepals are fringed with glandular hairs, 
and its crimson flowers are slightly curved and borne 
in one-sided sprays. The anthers of this and the 
two following species are without the radiating 
horns or tails. 
The Cornish Heath (4. vagans) has leaves like 
fir-needles, half an inch long, and the flowers are 
bell-shaped, with an open mouth through which the 
stamens and pistil are well protruded. The flowers, 
too, are mounted each on a long foot-stalk, and are 
