PERFECT FLOWERS 



69 



FLOWERING TOBACCO 



Long-flowered Tobacco 



Nicotiana longiflora 



A very beautiful 

 garden flower, occa- 

 sionally escaping from 

 cultivation, which at 

 night produces great 

 quantities of lovely white flowers, redolent with 

 heavy perfume, and richly stored with honey 

 for the night-moths. By day the plant appears 

 positively shabby, with its numerous faded and 

 wilted flowers; but these seem to absorb new life 

 from the coolness of evening, and at night are all 

 again stately and alluring. I was curious concern- 

 ing two points in this flower: first, how the pollen 

 which filled the opening of the throat was kept 

 from the stigma; and, second, what was the use of 

 the abnormally lengthened tube — too long for the 

 tongue of any of our insects to sound. 



One night I made sections of a great many 

 flowers and buds and found that the pollen was 

 shed just before the first opening of the flower, 

 the anthers bursting and opening out into curious 

 little capsules resembhng cocked-hats. In older 

 flowers whose pollen had been removed the pistil 

 had turned to a dark brown colour, and had split 

 into a cross-shaped spear on the front face of the 



