458 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



philons, for I have never seen it visited by insects. The second form grows 

 on the hills, and has a much shorter scape ; it also is essentially anemo- 

 philous. I once saw a species of Halictus on a spike, trying to get pollen ; 

 but the structure of the flower is so unfitted for pollen-collecting, that 



great part of the 

 pollen fell to the 

 ground witho u t 

 benefiting either the 

 plant or the insect. 

 Finally, the third 

 form is dwarfish and 

 confined to the moun- 

 tains ; it has the 

 shortest spike and 

 filaments : on mea- 

 dows in the Apen- 

 nines at Chiavari I 

 have seen bees in 

 numbers flying from 

 one flower to another 

 of this variety, col- 

 lecting the pollen and 

 performing cross- 

 fertilization. 



"This, therefore, 

 is a form of Plantago 

 which hangs be- 

 tween the anemo- 

 philous and entomo- 

 philous conditions, 

 and is capable of be- 

 ing fertilized equally 

 well by the wind and 

 by the bees. If the 

 filaments became 

 stiff and coloured, 

 and the pollen-grains 

 adhesive, while the 

 anthers lost their pe- 

 culiar quivering, we should have before us the passage from anemophilous 

 characters, the evolution of an entomophilous from an anemophilous species. 

 "This hypothetical transition has actually occurred. Plantago media 

 is a form that has become entomophilous ; the filaments have become 

 pink, the anthers are motionless, the pollen-grains have become more 



FIG. 563. COMMON SORREL (Rumex aceto 



A common plant formerly 

 of potash. The sex 



abounding in oxalate 

 carried by the wind. 



