340 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
distinguished ancestry: you have only to examine 
their flowers—and these have become so small you 
must do it with a lens—to be satisfied of their 
relationship to the magnificent Liliwm awratwm, 
the gaudy Tulip, and the pungent Onion. 
The Wood-rushes (Luzula) have kept nearest to the 
Lily type in their long flat leaves clothed with long 
silky hairs. Their flowers vary from one-fifth to one- 
twelfth of an inch across, and are 
a. See of harsh texture; but there are 
\ the six segments, the six stamens, 
and the three stigmas. It is 
true the three cells of the ovary 
have been reduced to one, but 
the capsule still contains the 
three seeds, and opens by three 
valves. In adapting themselves 
to wind-fertilisation, these plants 
have had to make their stigmas 
long and thread-like and covered 
with little raised points (papille) all over to give 
them a better chance to catch the dry pollen-grains 
that fly from another plant. Looking at this figure 
of a Wood-rush flower, the reader might object 
that the stigmas by bending down could come into 
contact with the anthers and so effect self-fertilisation 
without calling in the aid of the wind to effect a 
cross; but self-fertilisation is prevented in a very 
simple manner—the stigmas are ripe, and as a rule 
have been fertilised, before the anthers open. 
In the Rushes (Juncus) the flower- parts are, 
popularly speaking, much the same as in the Wood- 
rushes, but the ovary is usually three-celled, and the 
Wood-rush 
