238 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
lengthens, and the knobbed stigma emerges beyond 
the tip of the anther-cone, and is then mature. From 
the hanging position of the flowers, only insects, such 
as bees, having the power to hang downwards on the 
petals whilst they thrust their long tongues between 
the stamens, can obtain the honey. 
Prickly Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is another 
of these bristly herbs whose flowers assume the 
pendulous position. The corolla is tubular, enlarging 
towards the mouth, which is closed by spear-shaped, 
toothed seales, and finished with five turned-out 
teeth. The five stamens are attached to the corolla- 
tube, alternating with the spear-shaped scales; the 
anthers converging to a point, as in Borage, forming a 
hollow cone into which the pollen is shed before the 
flower opens. The style ends in a rounded head 
(stigma) which stands beyond the anthers, and comes 
to maturity soon after the flower opens. An insect 
comes into contact with the stigma on first alighting, 
and if it has already visited a Comfrey flower and 
got dusted with pollen, cross - fertilisation is first 
effected, and then by pushing its tongue between the 
anthers, it shakes down ashower of pollen with which 
to fertilise another flower. Some of the bees that 
visit the Comfrey protest against these arrangements 
by biting lobes in the basal portion of the tube and 
extracting the honey without touching either stigma 
or anthers! Such is the stage of intelligence to 
which these creatures have now arrived. 
The particular form of cyme in which the flowers 
of Comfrey are arranged is known as a scorpioid 
cyme, because its curve suggests the curl in the tail 
of the scorpion! A similar form is found in the 
