Primrose and Pimpernel 227 
when fertilisation has taken place, the long slender 
flower-stalk curls downward so as to hide the swelling 
seed-vessel under the leaves. When ripe, this fruit 
is the size and shape of a pea, and instead of opening 
by five teeth as does the Primrose, it splits in two by 
a clean horizontal fissure, and the upper portion 
comes off like a lid. 
The last of the Primworts we have space to 
mention is the beautiful but 
strangely - named Water Violet 
(Hottonia palustris), which would 
be more correctly called Water 
Primrose. The calyx is not a 
toothed tube as in Primula, but 
is slit almost to the base into five 
slender lobes. The lilac corolla is 
salver-shaped, much lke a Prim- 
rose, but the lobes longer and narrower. The stamens 
and pistils are somewhat similar in arrangement to 
those of the Primrose, and there are long- and short- 
styled forms, which are honeyed and borne in several 
whorls on the tall fiower-stem ; 
but, as will be seen in the accom- 
panying figures, the short-styled 
reaches to the mouth of the tube 
and the stamens stand around the 
mouth, whilst in the long-styled 
form the stigma projects far beyond 
the mouth. Cross-fertilisation is 
insured by insects who seek the 
honey touching the same parts of 
their bodies alternately against anthers and stigmas ; 
but here, as in Oxlip, mere pollen-seekers (flies in this 
Water Violet: Long-styled 
Water Violet: Short-styled 
