222 



THE FLOWER,. 



opened blossoms are all thrown to one side almost as strongly 

 as the style is thrown in the opposite direction. One of our 

 common Fireweeds, Epilobium angustifolium or E. spicatum, as 

 it is variously called, which is common all round the northern 

 hemisphere, is similar to Sabbatia in behavior. In the freshly 

 opened flower, while the anthers are in good condition and are 



giving their pollen to bees, the still immature style is strongly 

 curved downward and backward, as in Fig. 425. Two or three 

 days later, when the pollen is mostly shed, the style straightens, 

 lengthens to its full dimensions, and spreads its four stigmas over 

 the line of the axis of the blossom (Fig. 426), in the verj 

 position to be pollinated by a bee coming from an earlier flower. 

 411. In the following instances of proterandry, the style is 

 made the instrument of distributing the pollen which it is not 



itself to use. The 

 anthers of a Cam- 

 panula discharge all 

 their pollen in the 

 unopened bud, and it 

 is nearly all deposited 

 on the style which 

 they surround, the 

 upper part of which 

 is clothed with a coat 

 of hairs for holding 



427 428 the pollen. (Fig. 427.) 



In the open flower, the stamens are found to be empty and withered, 

 as in Fig. 428. These flowers are visited by bees and other insects 

 for the pollen. While this is going on, and while the pollen is 

 fresh and plentiful, no stigma is apparent. Later, the top of the 

 st}*le opens into three (in some species five) short and spreading 

 branches, the inner faces of which are the stigmas. Although 



FIG. 425, 426. Flowers of Epilobium angustifolium or spicatum; in the first, 

 freshly expanded ; in the second, a few days older. 



FIG. 427. Vertical section of an unopened flower of Campanula rapunculoides : 

 the broad white lines are sections of two anthers. 428. Same of an older flower. 



