PART III. | THE MECHANISMS OF FLOWERS. 557 
Tofieldia calyculata, Wahlenb., is proterogynous; 7. borealis, 
Wahlenb., is homogamous. The flowers in both species are 
yellow, and the visitors are chiefly, but not exclusively, flies and 
beetles. The much smaller flowers of 7. borealis are less visited 
than the more conspicuous flowers of 7’. calyculata, but the former 
species makes up in part by an increased secretion of honey. Its 
flowers, being homogamous, have a better chance of self-fertilisation 
in default of insect-visits (609). 
Methonica (Gloriosa) superba has a pendulous flower, whose 
stamens and style are directed horizontally outwards, and serve, 
according to Delpino, as a platform for insects (172). Hildebrand 
states that in young flowers the style serves as an alighting-place, 
while the stamens lie deeper; and that in older flowers the 
stamens assume this function, so that cross-fertilisation of young 
flowers with pollen from older proceeds regularly (352). 
Paris quadrifolia.—1 was long puzzled to discover how this 
flower is fertilised. 
The stigmas are already mature when the flowers open; the 
anthers dehisce several days later, the stigmas still remaining 
fresh. The pollen-grains are about ‘04 mm. long by ‘(016 mm. 
broad; they remain adhering in great quantity to the ripe 
anthers, but fly off on the slightest touch in a cloud of separate 
grains. The nature of the pollen and the complete absence of 
honey and of a coloured perianth point to the flowers as being 
anemophilous, The stiff filaments and the long connectives, which 
are produced into awn-like prolongations, do not support this view, 
unless they assist the transport of the pollen by the wind when 
they are shaken by pollen-feeding flies alighting on them. 
I wrote the above in 1872, and I did not discover till six years 
later that the flower of Paris becomes intelligible in all its parts 
when one looks upon it as adapted for Diptera; and I observed 
then that in fact it is visited by Diptera. The dark purple ovary, 
crowned by four stigmas of the same colour, glitters as if it were 
covered with moisture ; and by this appearance and by its dis- 
agreeable smell it attracts Scatophaga merdaria and other carrion- 
feeding Diptera. These visitors often alight upon the stigma 
and lick the ovary with their labelle, and then climbing up the 
anthers, dust the soles of their feet or the whole under-surface 
of their bodies with pollen. So, flying away to other flowers, they 
accomplish cross-fertilisation (589). 
Veratrum albwm, L., is proterandrous. Some plants possess, in 
addition to the hermaphrodite flowers, male flowers also; others 
