156 THE NATURE-STUDY OF PLANTS 
Cross-pollination is the rule, and it is not impossible 
in any one of them, whether annual or perennial, and 
in all of them except the Meadow, the Dusky and 
perhaps the Mountain Cranesbill provision is made for 
self-pollination too. In my own experience it does 
not often take place in the Bloody Cranesbill or its 
varieties, but it occurs in the Wood Cranesbill, not 
regularly, but on those rare occasions when the 
stamens and the stigmas mature at the same time. 
With the annuals self-pollination is on the other 
hand quite common in every one of our species, while 
in theSmall Dovesfoot and the Storksbill in the shadier 
places it seems to be the rule almost but not quite 
to the exclusion of a cross. 
The greatest difference that I noted in the time 
that elapses between pollination and seed maturity 
amounted to seventeen days, twenty-eight for the 
Meadow Cranesbill as against eleven for the shingle 
variety of the Herb Robert, which also took the first 
prize for quick germination. In all the other species 
that I watched, including the Storksbill, it wastwenty- 
one; but this is not a matter that need detain us, the 
interest again lying in the uniformity, and my obser- 
vations being confined within the same limits as those 
upon the minimum resting period of the seed. 
As for the last factor, the Care of the Children, 
we have found that the mechanism of the first-instance 
dispersal is exactly the same throughout, for in 
Cranesbills and Storksbill alike the style breaks up 
into five elastic strips, which are capable of throwing 
the seeds to a considerable distance. 
It is when we come to the details of the arrange- 
ments that we find sharply marked differences as set 
forth in Table IT., page 163, nor must we forget the 
