2.0 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 11, 1883. 



A NATUKALIST'S YEAR. 



By Chant ALLE>f. 

 XII.— TWO LITTLK GUEEXISH FL0WKK3. 



OUT of the bank beside the lane I have just pioknd 

 two very inconspicuous, yet very pretty, little 

 !;reenish wild flowers. Most people, I suppose, hardly 

 know that such things as green flowers exist at all : and 

 j'et, perhaps, half our English weeds have really blossoms 

 in which green is either the prevalent or the only colour. 

 The fact is, both our tastes and our observations in this 

 matter are still more or less barbaric 1 we notice and gather 

 all the bright blue and crimson and yellow flower?, but pass 

 by their little green sisters in the hedge-rows or meadows 

 i^uite unheeded. Thus, as a rule, we confine our attention 

 '•ntirely to those large and conspicuous species which 

 depend for fertilisation upon the larger insects, while we 

 leave out of consideration those graceful, waving, pendu- 

 lous kinds which trust rather to the friendly offices of the 

 summer breezes. 



The little green blossoms which I have picked to-day, 

 however, belong to rather a diflerent class from the true 

 wind-fertilised species, siich as the grasses and catkins. 

 Thorough-going wind-flowers have usually lost their petals 

 altogether, like the sedges and reed-maces, or have reduced 

 them to mere rudiments, like the grasses, or else have 

 tucked them away inconspicuously behind their calyx, like 

 the plantains ; so that all you can .see of their inflorescence 

 — with the naked eye, at least, or without dissection — is a 

 clustered spike or pannicle of waving stamens and feathery 

 styles. But the little flowers I have picked from the 

 bank here are not nearly so degenerate or so much 

 reduced in plan as that. This pretty, delicate, pale- 

 green plant that I hold in my hand is moscatel, 

 probably a distant relation of the elder, though 

 it is but a slender, very dainty herb, instead of a stout, 

 woody bush. Its rootstock, you see, forms a sort of semi- 

 transparent bulb, from which springs a tall stalk, bearing, 

 half-way up, a pair of divided opposite leaves, and sur- 

 mounted at the top by a little globular head of dainty green 

 flowers. In colour they almost exactly resemble the leaves, 

 but in shape and general appearance they are extremely 

 like the familiar little scarlet pimpernel. In fact, the 

 blossoms are so pretty in their symmetry and delicacy that, 

 though nobody ever notices them till they are pointed out, 

 everybody is always surprised at their singular beauty 

 when attention has once been directed to their shape and 

 \;olour. 



Looking closely into the little heads, you can see that 

 each one usually consists of five flowers, one on top and 

 four below. The upper or central flower has generally two 

 sepals to its calyx and four lobes to its corolla ; the lower 

 or lateral ones have generally three sepals and five lobes. 

 Why is this t Well, the reason is simply one of obvious 

 convenience. The central flower, crowded between its four 

 neighbours, has only just room to expand a single lobe in 

 each interspace ; the lower flowers, less cramped in their 

 development, can ordinarily manage to find a pl.ace for the 

 full normal number of live lobes, which they inherit from 

 all their ancestors. But in stunted specimens, or in very 

 knobby heads, you will often find that one or more of the 

 lower blossoms has also been reduced by the pressure of its 

 neighbours to the four-lobed condition. This is all the 

 more interesting because their close relations, the dogwoods 

 and galiums, have almost always only four ; though even 

 here a few conservative species still manage to produce the 

 original five petals of the ordinary dicotyledonous corolla. 



If you pull off the corolla from one of the blossoms, it 

 comes away in a single piece, with the stamen sticking to 

 it, just as in elder-Vjlossom or laurustinus When you come 

 to count the stamens, however, you will find that there are 

 apparently eight in the four-lobed flowers, and ten in the 

 five-lobed, instead of four and five respectively as in all 

 their other congeners. Each of these stamens is, in fact, 

 only a half stamen ; the original five have split up into 

 ten, as you can easily see from the fact that there are two 

 in the interval between each lobe of the corolla. This 

 curious arrangement is related, I believe, to the peculiar 

 method of fertilisation adopted by the plant. It lays 

 itself out specially to attract small flies, which seem 

 to care very little in this case for the allurement 

 of colour. If you look closely at the little ring on the 

 corolla, where the stamens are inserted, you will observe 

 between each pair a tiny glistening drop of sticky liquid. 

 That liquid is the honey ; and it is placed thus openly on 

 the flat surface of the flower, instead of being concealed at 

 the bottom of a deep tube, on purpose to accommodate the 

 little flies, which seem to be enticed to it mainly by the 

 sense of smell. Each half stamen bends over, when ripe, 

 towards the honey ; so that the insect is sure to rub against 

 it while sipping the nectar, and to brush it off against the 

 five stigmas of the next flower he visits in due course. 



The other little weed which I have picked from the same 

 bank is much yellower and more conspicuous than the mos- 

 catel, though not nearly so pretty. It is a saxifrage by 

 family, and is commonly known as golden saxifrage, though 

 the botanists make it into a separate genus, and call it 

 chrysosplenium. It is interesting to compare this plant 

 with moscatel, both because of its resemblances and of its 

 differences. At first sight the likeness is very close ; you 

 would say, roughly speaking, that it had a small four-lobed 

 flower with eight stamens, as in the central blossom of its 

 greener neighbour. But when you come to look closer, you 

 see that there is apparently no trace of a calyx, and that 

 the eight stamens are really eight, instead of four split 

 pairs. They stand in two whorls of four each ; and when 

 they begin to wither it is easy to distinguish the outer 

 from the inner whorl. Now, in all the books on 

 botany you will find it written that golden saxifrage 

 has a calyx, but no corolla ; indeed, it is almost 

 a point of faith with botanists of the old school, that when- 

 ever a flower has only one floral envelope, as they call it, 

 that envelope should be considered as a calyx. It seems 

 to me quite clear, however, that in this case it is the calyx 

 that has disappeared, while the four lobes form a real 

 corolla. For the stamens of the outer whorl alternate 

 with the lobes, instead of being opposite them ; and, I 

 believe, wherever the petals have been suppressed, the 

 stamens stand opposite the sepals, as in nettles and goose- 

 foots, instead of alternately with them, thus leaving, as it 

 were, a blank in the place where the petals ought to be. 

 It is easy enough to understand how in rather succulent 

 plants, like the saxifi-ages, the very small and adherent 

 calyx might become so united with the petals as to dis- 

 appear altogether. Indeed, there are many allied plants 

 in which the calyx can only be distinguished as a very 

 small rim or edge outside the petals. 



Moreover, golden saxifrage helps us to understand the 

 steps by which moscatel has become green. It is itself a 

 greenish-yellow in hue ; but though it is fertilised by very 

 small miscellaneous insects, it still finds it worth while to 

 attract them by some faint show of colour. IMoscatel, on 

 the other hand, being apparently very restricted in its 

 natural range of insect guests, can afford to dispense with 

 colour altogether. Why some flowers of this sort should 

 find they get along better with green petals is a little difli- 



