THE CARDINAL-FLOWER. 139 



and season of flowering, contributing its full share to the beauty 

 of our summer and autumn landscape. It comes in with the 

 heat, and goes out with the frost. 



It is said to be easy of cultivation in gardens where moist places 

 may be found into which to transplant it. It seems to be capa- 

 ble of crossing in a wild state with a large blue-flowered species 

 of the Lobelia, common in our woods. Examples of hybrids pro- 

 duced in nature which show marked characteristics of both species 

 are not unknown. Whether the hybrids propagate any other way 

 than by shoots I know not. 



The genus Lobelia comprises some two hundred species scat- 

 tered over the world, about twenty of which are natives of this 

 country, though strange to say none have ever yet been found on 

 the Pacific coast. Botanically considered, the genus is related 

 to such compositae as the Asters on the one side and to the 

 Campanulas or Bell-flowers on the other. A comparison of the 

 parts, as for example, of the pistil and stamens with those of the 

 Aster, and the corolla with that of the Bell-flower, would make 

 the relationship apparent to any observer. 



Botanists have noticed that many species of Lobelia are fertilized 

 by help of insects, as I have had occasion to show is true of 

 several other flowers, whose natural history has been given in this 

 book and in " Beautiful Wild Flowers." But in the Cardinal- 

 flower we have an example of a plant depending upon birds for 

 help in the act of pollenization. As will easily be seen by an 

 inspection of the flower or of the plate, the anthers and partly 

 the filaments of the stamens are glued together at their sides 

 forming a close tube. The pollen is produced on the inside of 

 this and discharged from the open bearded mouth at the end. 



