52 TYPICAL FLOWERS OF ALPINE PASTURES 



petals forming the bell are almost completely fused, 

 the recurved portions at the edge of the open bell 

 being alone free. 



Internal to the corolla we find five stamens, which 

 spring from the base of the bell. Their stalks are 

 quite free from one another, but the pollen-producing 

 organs, the anthers, are united together in a ring 

 closely embracing the style or upper portion of the 

 ovary. In the photograph the ovary is seen between 

 the stalks of the stamens, and the style, with its two 

 stigmas, above the united anthers. 



The union of the anthers, and their close proximity 

 to the style, is part of a simple and interesting 

 mechanism for ensuring cross-fertilisation, by the 

 agency of some insect visitor, which will carry the 

 pollen of one flower to the stigmas of another. Cross- 

 fertilisation is essential to most of the Flowering Plants, 

 and is brought about either by animal, especially 

 insect, visits, or by wind transference. The result of 

 cross-fertiHsation is renewed vitality to the stock. 

 While self-fertilisation may be the rule in a minority 

 of plants, yet in the majority, as Charles Darwin 

 showed, continuous self-fertilisation is harmful, for 

 the stock weakens and the seeds tend to become 

 sterile, and the plant may even become totally extinct. 

 At the same time, many plants which are usually 

 cross-fertilised are capable of occasional self-fertilisa- 

 tion when by some accident the chance of cross- 

 fertilisation has been missed. 



In a large number of flowers adapted to cross- 



