36 ANGIOSPERMAEDICOTYLEDONES 



found in the Alps 3 beetles, 4 flies, and 3 small Hymenoptera. Ricca also saw 

 small flies covered with pollen in the flowers. Schulz observed numerous flies, 

 Hymenoptera, and beetles. 



In Dumfriesshire (Scott-Elliot, ' Flora of Dumfriesshire,' p. 6) there have been 

 observed, one beetle, one of the Muscidae, 3 hover-flies, and a saw-fly. 



Loew observed in the Berlin Botanic Garden a bee Halictus minutissimus 

 K. 5, po-cltg. 



14. Eranthis Salisb. 



Flowers homogamous, with half-concealed nectar. The elongated yellow sepals 

 serve to attract insects. The nectar is secreted by the modified petals, which are 

 converted into small, hollow nectaries, resembling inverted cones in shape, and 

 almost bilabiate. (See Fig. 9, 9.) 



77. E. hyemalis L. (Herm. Miiller, ' Fertilisation/ pp. 80-1 ; Kerner, 

 ' Nat. Hist. PI./ Eng. Ed. 1, II, p. 213; Knuth, Bloemenbiol. Bijdragen.') Miiller 

 states that the flower mechanism agrees with that of Ranunculus auricomus. The 

 flowers close in dull weather, and expand in sunshine. Their stamens and carpels 

 mature simultaneously, so that insects which pay their visits only while the sun is 

 shining, when they alight upon the middle of the flower effect cross-pollination, but 

 in cloudy weather automatic self-pollination takes place in the closed flower by 

 contact of the anthers with the stigmas. Kerner states that the anthesis of these 

 flowers which remain open from eight o'clock in the morning till seven in the 

 evening lasts for eight days. During this time the floral leaves increase to double 

 their original size. 



Visitors. In the Garden at Kiel, I observed the honey-bee collecting pollen 

 and sucking nectar. Hermann Miiller noticed the same insect in Westphalia ' in 

 great numbers, sufficient to fertilize all the flowers.' He also observed 3 Muscidae ; 



1. Pollenia rudis F., ' stroking petals, anthers, and sometimes stigmas with the 

 end-flaps of its proboscis, but finally thrusting its proboscis into the nectaries'; 



2. Musca domestica Z., ditto ; 3. Sepsis, ' busy about the anthers.' I saw yet 

 another visitor Vanessa urticae L. resting on the sepals, and sucking nectar, 

 but it touched neither anthers nor stigmas. 



15. Helleborus Adans. 



Flowers protogynous, with concealed nectar. The large sepals serve to attract 

 insects. The petals are modified into short-stalked nectaries of greenish colour, 

 which are in the form of short tubes and more or less distinctly bilabiate. 



78. H. foetidus L. (Kirchner, 'Flora v. Stuttgart/ p. 271; Knuth, Bot. 

 Centralbl., Cassel, lvii, 1894.) The ovoid flowers are green, usually spotted or 

 bordered with brown externally, and are moderately conspicuous owing to their 

 being associated in a crowded inflorescence. When they open, the stigmas are 

 mature, and are so placed in the narrow entrance of the flower only 1 cm. in 

 diameter that every moderately large insect that creeps in must inevitably brush 

 against them. Each carpel possesses stigmatic papillae not only on its slightly 

 clavate end, but also on its outer side, these being continued along a groove as 





