128 HETEROSTYLED DIMORPHIC PLANTS. CHAP. IIL 



short-styled flowers a similar brush of hairs is situated 

 low down within the tubular corolla, above the stigma 

 and beneath the anthers. The presence of these beaded 

 hairs in both forms, though occupying such different 

 positions, shows that they are probably of considerable 

 functional importance. They would serve to guard the 

 stigma of each form from its own pollen; but in 

 accordance with Prof. Kerner's view* their chief use 

 probably is to prevent the copious nectar being stolen 

 by small crawling insects, which could not render any 

 service to the species by carrying pollen from one form 

 to the other. 



The flowers are so small and so crowded together 

 that I was not willing to expend time in fertilising 

 them separately ; but I dragged repeatedly heads of 

 short-styled flowers over three long-styled flower-heads, 

 which were thus legitimately fertilised ; and they pro- 

 duced many dozen fruits, each containing two good 

 seeds. I fertilised in the same manner three heads 

 on the same long-styled plant with pollen from another 

 long-styled plant, so that these were fertilised illegiti- 

 mately, and they did not yield a single seed. Nor did 

 this plant, which was of course protected by a net, 

 bear spontaneously any seeds. Nevertheless another 

 long-styled plant, which was carefully protected, pro- 

 duced spontaneously a very few seeds; so that the 

 long-styled form is not always quite sterile with its 

 own pollen. 



FARAMEA [SP. ?] 



Fritz Muller has fully described the two forms of this 

 remarkable plant, an inhabitant of South Brazil, f In 



* 'Die Schutzraittel der Blii- t 'Bot. Zcitung,' Sept. 10, 1SG9, 

 then gegen unberufene Gasti.',' p. GOG. 

 187G, p. 37. 



