n 6 FLOWERS OF THE WOODS AND COPSES 



flowering stem. The leaves are egg-shaped in pairs, stalked, erect, 

 smooth, lance-shaped, veined, one of them exceeding the other, bright 

 green. The leaf-stalks are round, long, the outer one dotted with red, 

 tubular, drooping, enclosing the inner solid one. 



The scape or flowering stem is lateral, as long as the leaves, naked, 

 smooth, erect, semi -cylindrical. The bracts or leaflike organs are 

 membranous below each flower. The flowers are in drooping racemes, 

 white, bell-shaped. The segments of the corolla are turned back. 

 The fruit is a red berry. 



This plant is 6 in. in height. It flowers in May and June. Lily-of- 

 the- Valley is perennial and propagated by the underground stems. 



The flowers are honeyless, but contain much pollen and the tissue 

 a sweet sap. The flowers are visited by numerous insects. The 

 flowers are homogamous, anthers and stigma being ripe together, or 

 the anthers first, and in the absence of insects self-pollination occurs. 



When the flower expands, the stigma, longer than the anthers, is 

 already covered with long papillae or wart-like knobs before the anthers 

 are mature; but if the anthers are ripe and rubbed over it, little pollen 

 adheres. When they have opened the stigma is sticky and pollen 

 adheres to it. The flowers are pendulous, and bees cling on, and 

 thrust the head and fore leg into the bell, touching the stigma first 

 with pollen from another flower. It sweeps the pollen with the brushes 

 of its fore legs into its baskets, and dusts its head with pollen, which 

 is carried to the next flower. The stigma is 3-lobed, and the anthers 

 stand close to it. 



The fruit is a rounded berry, which is red when ripe and falls to 

 the ground, but may rarely be dispersed by birds. The plant generally 

 grows in wide patches, indicating that it is mainly dispersed by its own 

 agency. 



The Lily-of-the- Valley is a lime-loving plant flourishing best on a 

 lime soil, but requiring humus. The leaves are attacked by 



A beetle, Crioceris lilii, and a fly, Parallelomma albipes, are found 

 on the Lily-of-the- Valley. 



Convallaria, Linnaeus, is from couvallis, a valley, its usual habitat, 

 and majalis indicates the flowering period, May. 



This pretty flower is called Conval-Lily, Great Park, May and 

 Wood Lily, Lily-among-thorns, Lily-conval, Lily-of-the- Valley, Liri- 

 con fancy, May Blossoms, May Lily, Mugwet, Valleys. 



They say at St. Leonards it sprang from the blood of St. Leonard, 

 who, encountering a mighty worm or " fire-drake " in the forest, fought 



