26 HOURS WITH NATURE. 



everybody, and holds an important place among the 

 cultivated garden plants. 



Among other noticeable flowers those of Snap-dragon 

 Anterrhi num (A. majus) interested us vastly owing to 

 the peculiar arrangement of the corolla for the purpose 

 of trapping insects. The flowers are of a purplish red 

 colour or variegated with white. The corolla which is 

 an inch long opens like a mouth when pressed between 

 the finger and thumb and forms an efficient insect-tractor 

 certain insects. rendered attractive to the little creatures 

 by the honey deposited within the tube. To have a taste 

 of this sweet nectar the insects enter the treacherous 

 tube. Once within it, all their efforts to find an egress 

 prove unavailing. 



Snap-dragon belongs to the Secrophulariacecz or Mask- 

 flowered family, and though only found as a cultivated 

 garden plant in India, it grows wild on chalk cliffs and 

 on old walls in the south of England. 



In India plants of the same family are tolerably 

 abundant. Our common Kookshima (Celsea eoromande- 

 liana, VahlJ is a familiar example. It grows wild in 

 various parts of India, appearing generally as a weed in 

 gardens or cultivated lands during the dry season. It 

 is an erect, ramous> and downy herb ; the lower leaves 

 lyrate, the upper ones sessile cordate : flowers small and 

 of a delicate yellow colour. 



There was the PINK or DIANTHUS in its variegated 

 beauty of white, pink, and scarlet. It holds an important 

 place among the cold season flowers in every Indian 



