570 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 
mellifera, P. lepidocarpon, P. longiflora, P. grandiflora, P. cordata, 
and P. scolymus, with Leucospermum conocarpum, and L. nutans, 
as fertilised by birds, naming Promerops caper, and Nectarinia 
chalybea as the fertilising agents. In Annals of Botany, August, 
1891, the same writer gives Leucadendron adscendens and Serruria 
congesta, as fertilised by Apis mellifera and other hymenoptera. 
The Proteace have their chief seats in Australia and South- 
west Africa ; but extend on the one side to New Caledonia, the 
Indian Archipelago, and through eastern tropical Asia to Japan; 
on the other side to South America. They are specially adapted 
for arid climates, where a short rainy season alternates with a long 
rainless period. Their leaves are furnished with breathing pores 
situated at the base of cavities in the lower surface of the leaf, 
and over-arched by cuticular or epidermal structures. The sub- 
stance of the leaf is very tough and dense, and there are brick-like 
layers of corky tissue surrounding the cavities. The upper cuticle 
is usually of two dense cellular layers, beneath which is a close 
layer of palisade cells. 
Since the Proteacez are inhabitants of desert regions, where in 
long droughts even insects may be destroyed, they are frequently 
furnished with a special pollen-storing apparatus, in order to effect 
fertilisation and set their seed; and that this apparatus often fails 
is seen in the few perfect fruits on Hakea and Macadamia bushes 
which have borne masses of blossoms, and by there being seldom a 
dozen fruits on a Banksia cone which carried a thousand perfect 
flowers. 
In this order the flowers have only one protective and attrac- 
tive coat, a perianth, formed of four leaves; the anthers are 
usually inserted in a sessile manner on the tips of the four petals, 
or are very shortly stalked. The style is long, and the stigma 
frequently remains hooked in the tips of the petals long after the 
style has forced its way through the perianth. At this stage the 
style looks like a single vase-like handle to the perianth from 
which it has escaped. When the stigma is free the style 
straightens itself with a springand becomes erect. The substance 
of the style is exceedingly horny and elastic, especially in Banksia. 
The stamens ripen before the petals separate, and when the stigma 
is freed its under edges are covered with pollen. Naturally one 
would expect that self-fertilisation was the rule in Proteacex, but 
such is not the case. These flowers are protandrous, the stamens 
ripening first, and the stigma is not only immature when its com- 
panion stamens dehisce, but also when it rises erect covered with 
pollen, and for some time afterwards. 
At the base of the ovary, or of the stalk on which it is sup- 
ported, there are nectaries, consisting of annular, lunar, or wart- 
like glands; these play an important part in the life-history of 
