46 ERYTHRINA HERBACEA. DWARF CORAL PLANT. 



uncertain these suggestions are as popular guides to a knowledge 

 of the families of plants may be well seen from our present 

 species, in which little trace of the butterfly can be found. It 

 w^ould be much more likely to lead us to imagine a sword 

 fresh from the battle-field. Yet if we set aside popular appear- 

 ances, and take up the flower in the light of a little botanical 

 knowledge, we shall find that a very slight circumstance has led 

 to this anomaly in this species. In plants of the papilionaceous 

 order, the upper portion of the corolla, called the vexillum 

 or standard, usually curves outwards or backwards, and enables 

 us to see other portions of the structure; but in this case it 

 remains bent downwards, and envelopes the rest of the flower, 

 and indeed this vexillum is all we see in the illustration on our 

 plate. This closed habit is somewhat characteristic of our 

 species, for the well-known coral plant of gardens, Erythrina 

 a^ista-gaUi, a Brazilian species, has an open and more nearly 

 butterfly-shaped corolla. 



The objects of these peculiar behaviors of flowers have become 

 subjects of very interesting studies since attention has been 

 directed to them by the observations of Mr. Charles Darwin, 

 who regards the various forms of flowers as having relation to 

 questions of pollenization. He mentions EryiJirina in one of 

 his works as a case where the flower cannot make use of its 

 own pollen without external aid. One of his correspondents tells 

 him that one in New South Wales produces seeds when the 

 flowers are disturbed by hand as an insect would move them. 

 Under culture we do not know of a case where either this 

 species or the Erythrina crista-galli has produced seed, though 

 in the last named plant the writer of this has applied pollen 

 from other flowers on the same plant. As it evidendy seeds 

 freely in its native places, it may prove of interest to those who 

 have the opportunity to investigate this matter thoroughly. The 

 seeds are very beaudful, being of a bright, shining, coral color ; 

 and those of some species are used in Brazil as a substitute for 

 coral in making necklaces. It may be from this fact that the 



