CHAP. IV. LYTHRTJM SALICARIA. 145 



collected in another spot he felt sure that the mid- 

 styled plants would have been in excess. I several 

 times sowed small parcels of seed, and raised all three 

 forms; but I neglected to record the parent-form, ex- 

 cepting in one instance, in which I raised from short- 

 styled seed twelve plants, of which only one turned out 

 long-styled, four mid-styled, and seven short-styled. 



Two plants of each form were protected from the 

 access of insects during two successive years, and in the 

 autumn they yielded very few capsules and presented 

 a remarkable contrast with the adjoining uncovered 

 plants, which were densely covered with capsules. In 

 1863 a protected long-styled plant produced only five 

 poor capsules ; two mid-styled plants produced together 

 the same number; and two short-styled plants only a 

 single one. These capsules contained very few seeds; 

 yet the plants were fully productive when artificially 

 fertilised under the net. In a state of nature the 

 flowers are incessantly visited for their nectar by hive- 

 and other bees, various Diptera and Lepidoptera.* The 

 nectar is secreted all round the base of the ovarium; 

 but a passage is formed along the upper and inner 

 side of the flower by the lateral deflection (not repre- 

 sented in the diagram) of the basal portions of the 

 filaments; so that insects invariably alight on the pro- 

 jecting stamens and pistil, and insert their proboscides 

 along the upper and inner margin of the corolla. We 

 can now see why the ends of the stamens with their 

 anthers, and the ends of the pistils with their stigmas, 

 are a little upturned, so that they may be brushed by 

 the lower hairy surfaces of the insects' bodies. The 

 shortest stamens which lie enclosed within the calyx of 



* H. Muller gives a list of the one bee, the Cilissa melannra, al- 

 species, 'Die Befruchtung der most confines its visits to this 

 Blumen,' p. 196. It appears that plant. 



