256 Mr. T. H. Farrer on the manner of 



are not given, there is a reference to that flower which shows 

 clearly enough that they had not escaped him. 



Whatever these facts are worth, they are the obvious results 

 of Mr. Darwin's own most suggestive papers on Primula.) 

 Linunij and Lythrum^ referred to in such high terms by 

 Dr. Hooker in his Norwich address. To an amateur, dismayed 

 by the difficulties of botanical classification, perplexed by his 

 own incapacity for microscopical dissection, and disgusted by 

 the mere cataloguing of species, Mr. Darwin's suggestion that 

 the true account of the structure and functions of flowers is 

 frequently to be found in their capacity for fertilization, and 

 especially in their capacity for cross fertilization with the pollen 

 of other flowers, is a ray of light which opens out an endless field 

 of interesting observation. And to those who look in science 

 for wider speculations, the gi*and generalization contained in 

 these and other papers of Mr. Darwin's, to the effect that fer- 

 tility in the animal and vegetable world requires the union of 

 elements which are neither identical nor dissimilar, but dif- 

 ferent and yet similar, with all its consequences, affords end- 

 less matter for thought, whilst it receives life and reality from 

 the minute observations of details in which his papers abound, 

 and of which they set such wonderful and stimulating exam- 

 ples. I know of no writings which so well illustrate the axiom 

 of the great German poet and observer — 



" Was fruchtbar ist, allein ist wahr." 



Sept. 17, 1868. T. H. Farrer. 



Mechanism for transporting Pollen in the Scarlet Runner 

 (Phaseolus coccineus). 



The two wings are united to the back and outside of the 

 keel some little distance above the base of both ; their blades 

 fold backwards from the centre towards the outside, and, by 

 the bending of the spiral keel, with the pistil and stamens in- 

 side it, the wings are thrust a little to the right hand, so that 

 the folded or bent blade of the left wing is opposite to the coil 

 of the keel, and is the natural place on which any insect seeking 

 to reach the bottom of the flower would alight. The lower parts 

 or claws of the wings remain upright, and are firm and elastic. 



The keel encloses the stamens and pistil from a point a little 

 above the ovary, and at the upper end the margins are joined 

 so as to foi-m an imperfect tube : it makes together with them 

 nearly two complete turns, of which the upper one and a half 

 lie close above one another in the same plane. This plane is 

 inclined at a small angle to the blade of the left wing, and is 

 so placed that the mouth of the spiral tube points obliquely 



