466 ORDER CAMPANULACEJ3, OR HAIRBELL TRIBE. 



in this order consists of five adherent sepals, which enclose the 

 ovarium, and then spread away from the top of it. The corolla 

 has very much the figure of a bell, save that it is marked by five 

 divisions at its edge, which show it to be made up of five petals ; 

 and it is veined in a very beautiful manner. From its base, and 

 consequently from the summit of the ovary, there spring five 

 stamens, whose filaments are broad and leaf-like at the base, and 

 curve inwards, so as to press the long narrow anthers against 

 the style, around which they cluster in the unblown flower almost 

 as do the adherent anthers of the Composite ; as soon as the 

 flower unfolds, however, the anthers shrivel and fall back. The 

 style is a taper stiff column longer than the stamens. It is 

 covered all over, to the very tips of the stigma, with stiff hairs, 

 which Nature has provided to sweep the pollen out of the cells of 

 the anthers, as the style passes through them in lengthening. If 

 it were not for this simple but effectual contrivance, the pollen, 

 which is set free by the bursting of the anthers as soon as the 

 flower opens, would drop out of the nodding flowers, and be lost, 

 before the stigma is expanded and ready to receive the fertilising 

 influence. The hairs of the style catch the pollen, and keep it, 

 until, by the agency of insects, by wind, or by other accidents, 

 it is brushed down upon the inverted stigmas. Many Cichora- 

 ceae are also furnished with these collecting hairs, which thus 

 constitute another point of alliance between the two groups ; this 

 alliance seems the strongest in some species of Campanulaceae 

 which have the flowers crowded together in heads. 



638. On examining the ovarium of the Hairbell, we find that 

 it contains three cells surrounding a central axis ; and that in 

 each cell there is a large fleshy receptacle, to which a great 

 number of minute ovules are attached. After these have been 

 fertilised, and the rest of the flower has withered, the calyx still 

 remains, inclosing the ovarium, and its sepals harden and enlarge ; 

 stout ribs appear in the ovarium ; and the whole fruit, in ripen- 

 ing, becomes dry, brown, and hard. In most of the order, the 

 capsule opens in the usual manner ; but in the genus Campanula 

 the mode is different. On looking at the top of the ovary 

 between the sepals, the point at which the separation of the 



