PACHYSANDRA PROCUMBENS. AMERICAN THICK-STAMEN. 3 I 



ciated all the pretty expressions of American flowers, we shall 

 have as much of interest associated with this as with the violets 

 of the Old World. In the mean time we can appropriate for it 

 White's beautiful lines : — 



" No ostentatious wish to seek for praise, 

 But still retiring from the public gaze, 

 It spreads its sweet beneficence around, 

 And by the fame it shuns can but be found." 



The flowers are arranged to insure self-fertilization, and this 

 is aided by the visits of insects. As shown in the plate, the 

 male flowers are in the upper portion of the spike, the two low- 

 est being the female ones. The anthers burst a few days after 

 the stigmas are in a receptive condition and the pollen can 

 easily fall on them. The insects in their visits only enter the 

 male flowers, and though they get covered with pollen, never 

 come in contact with the pistils ; but the stamens have an articu- 

 lation by which they are readily detached, and after they have 

 been visited by the insects, they fall and carry the pollen to the 

 stigmas below. The blossoming is generally over by the first 

 of May. 



The way in which the plant grows on from year to year 

 offers a very pleasant subject for study, and our artist has 

 caught a pretty phase in the plant's life. It is, to a certain 

 extent, a shrub ; at least, it makes a shoot one year from which 

 the flower is to come the next. The leaves remain on the little 

 branch till spring, and until after the flower has matured. They 

 commence to turn color as the young flowers form ; at the same 

 time, the plant pushes out its new growth for the next year's 

 work. Thus we have the old leaves with their varied colors, 

 the maturing flowers, and the young growth in regular order. 

 The same succession goes on from year to year, all the older 

 growth dying, and in this manner the plant advances, so that in 

 the course of many years it travels a long distance from the 

 original spot, although at the rate of but an inch or so in a 



