2 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST S CALENDAR. 



left alone and not choked by that most aggressive of 

 naturalised plants the cocksfoot grass. I find that out 

 of 226 specimens of seedling primroses in my garden, 121 

 are long-styled and 105 are short-styled ; while among 

 auriculas the proportion is 25 to 28. I notice, too, that 

 in some of my seedlings there is a tendency for the 

 stamens to he suppressed. Wherever this occurred the 

 throat of the corolla was five-lohed, as if a corona or a 

 five-angled cup was being developed. This sport might 

 with cultivation lead to the establishment of a very 

 interesting and pretty variety. 



Over the front of the verandah, and creeping up to the 

 drawing-room windows, are several plants of the large 

 white - flowered Clematis. This loveliest of our native 

 bush flowers also has two kinds of blossoms, again occur- 

 ring on different plants, but of different sexes ; the male 

 or staminate having six large white sepals and a bunch 

 of numerous stamens, whose greenish - yellow filaments 

 crowned with the pink anthers give such a delicate tint 

 to the flowers, and the smaller, more star-like female or 

 pistillate blossoms, with a single row of imperfect stamens 

 and a central tuft of carpels with long feathery styles. 

 The pistillate flowers are generally greener in hue than the 

 staminate, whose sepals when fully opened are nearly pure 

 white in colour. Both kinds of flowers are extremely con- 

 spicuous, not only on account of their size and brilliancy, 

 but also because they are produced in such large masses ; 

 but they have no appreciable scent and are apparently 

 destitute of nectar. But if you stand and watch them 

 closely you will see that several kinds of flies, and some- 

 times some honey-bees, visit them. The latter are perhaps 

 chiefly in search of the pollen which is produced in such 

 profusion, but the former will be seen to thrust their 

 trunks down among the bases of the filaments, where they 

 evidently find something very much to their taste. Each 

 male flower has a great many from 80 to 100 stamens, 

 and each anther contains some hundreds of pollen granules. 

 As only one of these granules is required for the fertilisation 



