THE FLOWERS OF THE HEDGEROWS 



701 



on the principle of the lobster-pot, pre- 

 vent them crawling out again for the time 

 being. After a while, the pistils begin 

 to wither, and then the stamens mature 

 and shower the pollen over the visitors ; 

 the fringe of hairs shrivel up and allcnv 

 the flies to escape. Since 

 they are well provided with 

 honey, the fact of their being 

 in captivity does not appear 

 to worry them, for when 

 they are liberated they seem 

 quite willing to visit another 

 Cuckoo-pint flower, and if 

 this occurs when the pistils 

 are maturing, they are sure 

 to leave some of the pollen 

 they have brought with 

 them on the sensitive stig- 

 matic surfaces, and in this 

 way effect cross fertihsation. 

 It is an ingenious device, 

 and makes one wonder how 

 many stages these plants 

 have been through, and how 

 many thousands of years it 

 has taken to bring them to 

 this pitch of perfection. 



In the autumn, the seed 

 vessels will be seen occupy- 

 ing the place of the pistils 

 — bright red berries, looking 

 like bunches of coral ; they 

 are very bitter to the taste 

 and are also very poisonous. 



THE VIOLET 



This flower needs no in- 

 troduction for the purpose 

 of identification, but there 

 are a few facts which are 

 worthy of mention. The 

 flowers of both the Sweet Violet {Viola 

 odorata) and the Dog Violet {Viola canina) 

 are very similar in structure, but the 

 latter, however, is devoid of scent ; the 

 green sepals are somewhat different, for 

 in the Sweet Violet they are blunt, while 

 in the other they end in sharp points. 

 Both of these plants (as in the case of the 

 Wood Sorrel) bear two kinds of flowers. 

 Besides the well-known coloured blossoms, 

 a little later in the year there will be found, 

 hidden among the leaves, other smaller, 

 and greenish, flowers with practically no 

 petals. These bear much more seed 



89 



than the showy ones, and it would seem 

 to be a waste of energy on the jjart 

 of the plant to produce its coloured 

 blooms at all ; probably the reason is that 

 cross fertihsation takes place in tliese 

 latter blossoms, and thus a cross is occasion- 



GREATER CELANDINE. 



ally secured. The White Violet, which is 

 frequently found nestling in the banks 

 under hedges, is a variety of the scented 

 kind ; the Dog Violet is generally of a 

 paler tint than T'. odorata. If one of 

 the flowers be imlled to pieces carefully, 

 it will be noticed that the five petals are 

 irregular in shape, and that one of them 

 is lengthened so as to form a covering for 

 the spurs of two out of the five stamens ; 

 it is inside these two spurs that the honey 

 is secreted. The free ends of the stamens 

 have small membranous expansions which 

 overlap and form a ring round the pistil ; 



