Foxglove and Toadflax 249 
zone of white round the mouth of the tube—which 
is blocked to Thrips and other unprofitable creepers 
by a fringe of fine hairs—and a number of dark-blue 
lines converge to this from each lobe, indicating the 
road to the honey, which is secreted at the base of 
the ovary. Fertilisation is effected chiefly by cer- 
tain two-winged flies; from the relative positions of 
anthers and stigma it could not possibly come about 
without insect aid. The filament of the stamen is 
relatively stout, but near the base it becomes very 
thin and flexible; this is intimately connected with 
the visitors, and the base of the style is thinned to 
correspond. A fly alights on the lowest lobe of the 
corolla with the style under it, so that its slight 
upward curve causes the stigma to be pressed against 
its lower surface. Then, pressing towards the honey, 
the visitor by his fore-legs takes hold of the stamens, 
which bend from the base until the anthers touch his 
under-side and dust it with the white pollen. The 
next flower he visits will receive part of that pollen 
upon its stigma. 
It is said by Miiller that the anthers and stigma 
ripen simultaneously ; but I have found in half-opened 
flowers that the stigma is already mature, though the 
anthers have not yet opened, nor has the honey yet 
commenced to flow. In this condition the corolla- 
lobes being rolled one within another, constitute a 
long tube whose mouth is partially closed by the 
stigma which will be found, quite mature, in the 
orifice or extruded to the extent of 1 mm. It is 
very probable that cross-fertilisation is effected thus 
early by a pollen-smeared fly trying for entrance or 
merely walking over the unopened buds before flying 
