246 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
scarcity of bees, and the pollen be still plentiful in 
the box-like anthers, self-fertilisation will come about 
in a singular way. Before the stigmas are mature, 
you may pull at the Foxglove corolla and have 
difficulty in removing it from round the ovary; you 
are more likely to tear it to pieces. But when the 
stigmas have expanded, the corolla is loose, and after 
a time slips off; in so doing the anthers are dragged 
over the stigma-lobes, and any pollen that may have 
been left is shaken upon them. 
When the seed-capsule is fully matured, it splits 
down each side from the old style to the base, and 
allows its small light seeds to be shaken out as the 
long stem oscillates in even slight breezes. Professor 
Henslow calculates that a single plant of Foxglove 
produces no less than 1,500,000 of these seeds. 
That is a pretty liberal provision for the perpetuation 
of the species. 
The Foxglove family is a very extensive one, and 
even in our own country includes no less than fourteen 
genera. We cannot deal fully with all these, but will 
glance briefly at the more striking variations from 
the Foxglove plan. 
The Mulleins ( Verbascum), before they develop their 
tall flowering stems, are often mistaken for Foxglove 
plants, the leaves being of similar dimensions and 
shape; though in those of the Foxglove the upper 
surface is rough with wrinkles, those of the Mulleins 
are in the several species more or less densely woolly. 
But when both plants are in flower the veriest tyro 
in matters botanical would never be in danger of 
confusing them, for the Mullein has yellow flowers of 
amore open character than those of Foxglove. ‘There 
