FIELD SCABIOUS 



35 



calyx is cup-shaped, and made up of radiate teeth edged with hairs. 

 The receptacle is tubular, as long" as the calyx. 



The plant is often 2 ft. high. It blooms from July to October. 

 The plant is perennial and propagated by seed. 



The flowers are conspicuous, and in fine weather this plant is 

 visited by many insects, and one is kept quite busy on a summer day 

 within sight or smell of this delightful flower in noting the visitors that 

 come and go in quick 

 succession. It is cross- 

 pollinated owing to its 

 proterandrous and dicho- 

 gamous flowers, while in 

 the absence of insects it 

 is self-pollinated. 



There are 5 florets in 

 each head, making a hemi- 

 spherical head, and they 

 become larger from the 

 centre to the margin. 

 The tube is long, but the 

 honey at the base is ac- 

 cessible to insects be- 

 cause it is widened above. 

 The anthers become ripe 

 slowly, occupying several 

 days in the process from 

 the margin to the centre. 

 They project 4-5 mm. 

 above the corolla, and in 

 spite of this not a single 

 stigma ripens till they have 



all opened; but when they do they do so rapidly and simultaneously, 

 and occupy the place of the anthers, and bees, &c., can cross-pollinate 

 them at a single visit. The whole head is first male, then female. In 

 other flowers the florets are female only, the stamens rudimentary. 

 Self-pollination usually is impossible, but in some flowers the females 

 are less numerous. The flowers are visited by Hymenoptera, Diptera, 

 Lepidoptera, Coleoptera. 



The fruits are beaked, and to a great extent may be dispersed 

 by animals. 



Field Scabious is a sand plant, delighting in a dry sand soil. 



FIELD SCABIOUS (Scabiosa arvensis, L.) 



