34 AS CALIFORNIA FLOWERS GROW 



secure from spoliation. To make security doubly 

 sure, she united her five sepals into a tough tubular 

 calyx, with the outside both hairy and sticky. It is 

 inflated below to look formidable to tiny eyes look- 

 ing upward, but it converges at the top into five 

 points which mark the apexes of the five original 

 sepals. Lest this calyx appear too forbidding to 

 guests she wishes to welcome, she has ten prominent 

 brownish veins marking the way up to the opening. 

 While the stem, leaf, and calyx are developed to 

 repel insects, the corolla is formed to attract. Thus 

 Silene announces definitely that she wishes creatures 

 that fly, and not those that merely crawl. The 

 corolla is beautifully fashioned. Each petal has a 

 narrow limb inside the calyx, but it spreads out into 

 a broad claw on reaching the light. The claw has 

 a cleft in the center, and also a little tooth on each 

 outer side; and just where it leaves the calyx, it 

 waves an upright banner. These five banners, stand- 

 ing close to each other in a ring, are called the 

 crown of the corolla; and they are there to guide 

 the flying creature down to the tube in which lies 

 the nectar he desires. Inside the petals rise the ten 

 stamens, each flaunting a pollen box; and inside 

 them, and lower down, are the three styles and their 

 stigmas. The corolla tube is not wide, so when 

 fumbling around, whether for nectar or for pollen, 

 the insect will get some dust on his body and carry. 



