The Golden Bell 



nates on the trailing species and another on the erect 

 species, yet really both kinds of Golden Bell are 

 dimorphic, i.e. can carry both kinds of flowers. Sir 

 Joseph Hooker sent for flowers of the F. suspensa 

 direct from Japan and China, and then compared them 

 with his own growing at Kew, and he found that 

 those from Japan had short styles and tall stamens, 

 while those from China and Kew had the reverse form. 

 No doubt in the scheme of Nature, fertilisation, to be 

 effective, should be a cross between the two kinds of 

 flowers, the long-styled being fertilised by pollen from 

 the long stamens and vice versa, and it is a curious 

 fact that in England the shrubs never appear to bear 

 fruit. 



These flowers are visited by both honey bees and 

 beetles, and in the long-styled flowers, where self- 

 fertilisation is impossible because the pollen is produced' 

 below the style, they no doubt bring about cross- 

 fertilisation, since the stigma presses on the visitor's 

 pollen-dusty body before the insect can reach the 

 flower's own pollen. According to Knuth, the style 

 in F. mridissima is sometimes scarcely longer than 

 the stamens, in which case the flower fertilises itself. 



The leaves follow upon the fading of the flowers. 

 Those of the species mridissima are long, narrow and 

 of plain outline, folding over one another in the bud ; 

 those of suspensa are broader, and are occasionally lobed. 



13 



