SUPPLEMENT 



ance and habits, so is G. tricolor, Benth., except that its flowers are 

 more showy, the three colors being pale violet, purple and gold. I 

 have seen this last Gilia cover acres of so-called desert land in the Mo- 

 have, the mass of color being a striking feature of the landscape. In this 

 locality the high winds preclude insect visits much of the time, but I 

 have seen very active carpenter bees making the most of a brief lull 

 in the wind ; besides, the anthers bend to the center of the flower so 

 that the pollen must fall down the throat and tube and so come in 

 contact with the stigmas as the corolla falls There is a pretty, 

 golden Gilia, G. aurea, Nutt., that is also able to flourish in hot, sandy 

 places in the south ; its flowers are niggardly in providing honey, and 

 must often have to pollinate themselves. 



G. dianthoideS) Endl., one of most exquisite of California wild 

 flowers, does literally carpet many a sunny spot in the southern sec- 

 tions. It, too, is variable in habit ; in grassy places it may send up 

 branches several inches high, when unshaded it may spread out in 

 densely flowering mats, or again may consist of a single stem lifting 

 a flower an inch or so above the earth. A species very nearly related 

 to this, G. dichotoma, Benth., is named evening snow, its white flowers 

 opening at four or five p. m., and closing at daybreak ; like most 

 night pollinated flowers it has a heavy odor. G. micrantha, Steud., 

 and some allied species with white or delicately tinted flowers, do not 

 tell the story of their pollination so clearly. The flowers are abun- 

 dant in late spring, or during the summer in the mountains ; the 

 corolla tubes are extremely slender and sometimes an inch or more 

 long, so that only large butterflies or moths can reach the honey ; in 

 the valleys the flowers usually close at night, but in the mountains I 

 have found them remaining open ; the stamens in the mountain 

 species vary in length but the styles are constant, so they are not, as 

 has been thought, dimorphic; I have reached no satisfactory con- 

 clusion about them, nor about the G. Californica. This latter species, 

 growing in masses among the chapparal, is a peerless little shrub, and 

 it is an anomaly indeed, if the showiness of the flowers be of no use 

 to the plant. 



Of the Nemophilas, N. anrita, Lindl., presents by far the most 

 legible story, but the others are very justly popular favorites. 

 N. insignis, Dougl., is perhaps the only species to which the name 

 baby blue eyes should be applied ; certainly it has few rivals in blue- 

 ness. According to color theories we should expect to find the flowers 

 in close alliance with the bees; they have five pairs of appendages 

 arranged to contain honey, but those I have examined have contained 

 very little, and the amount of pollen was small. The flowers close 



70 



