292 MONOCOTYLEDONS. 



the small honey-pores at the base of the style can be seen 

 with a lens. 



Since the flower-tube is very wide, except at the very base, 

 insects of all kinds can enter and take away pollen and honey ; 

 the pollen from the burst anthers falls on the lower side of 

 the horizontal corona. The flower is, however, adapted for 

 pollination by large bees, which in entering rub first against 

 the stigma and probe for the honey which collects below the 

 insertion of the six flat filaments. Each flower remains open 

 and ready for insect-visits for about three weeks ; the stigma 

 and anthers are protected by the large corona, which makes 

 the flower conspicuous. 



310. The Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), though not a native 

 British plant, occurs as a garden escape in various places. It has a 

 small bulb, which each year produces a scale-leaf, two foliage- 

 leaves, and a flowering stem bearing a single flower. The scale-leaf 

 forms a protective sheath ; the swollen bases of the foliage-leaves and 

 the flowering stem form the fleshy scales of the new bulb ; the flowering 

 stem arises in the axil of the upper foliage-leaf, and the axis ends in 

 a flowering bud for next year. A new bulb may arise as a bud in the 

 axil of the sheathing scale-leaf or that of the lower foliage-leaf, 

 and ultimately separate from the main axis, which grows on year 

 after year. 



The flower is at first erect and enclosed in a sheathing bract, which 

 has two thick green side portions and a colourless middle portion and 

 is prolonged above into two claws. The ov&ry is inferior, three - 

 chambered, and contains numerous ovules. The perianth consists of 

 six free parts, of which the outer three are white, elliptical, with 

 narrow base, and the inner three are shorter, broader, and notched at 

 the top. The outer perianth-leaves are spreading, while the inner 

 ones are nearly vertical and have on the outer side a green V-shaped 

 patch following the notch, and on the inner side about eight green 

 lines. The six stamens arise from the top of the ovary, within the 

 perianth -leaves ; the filaments are short and slender, the anthers long 

 and tapering and ending each in a thread-like process at the tip. The 

 anthers are close together and form a cone around the style ; each 

 opens by a pore on the inner side at the top, but each pore extends as 

 a slit to the base of the anther. Within the six filaments and around 

 the base of the style there is a ring-like nectary ; the style projects 

 beyond the anthers and ends in a pointed tip which bears stigmatic 

 hairs. 



The flower performs opening and closing movements, confined to 

 the three outer perianth-leaves. These movements are, as in the 

 Crocus, dependent on temperature ; warmth causes these segments to 

 grow more rapidly on the inner side and thus to curve outwards, 

 exposing the conspicuous inner segments. The flowers are adapted 



