178 MYSTERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



MALLOW 



Round-leaved Mallow — Malva rotundifolia 



This attracts few insects by its 

 small pale flowers, and consequently 

 is able to fertilise its own stigmas in 

 the following curious way. 



In the centre of tlie flower rises a 

 stalk, close about which grow nu- 

 merous anthers. Above them springs 

 a cluster of styles, each bearing a 

 stigma. If an insect fertilises these 

 advancing stigmas, nothing more is required. But, 

 this failing, the styles curl downward like the ten- 

 tacle of a minute octopus, curve and twist around 

 the stamen-cluster, absorb pollen from them, and 

 are fertilised. 



The barberry, whose exquisite mechanism for 

 cross-fertilisation we described in full, is not too 

 sensitive and shrinking to avoid self-fertilisation. 

 In fact, it is quite capable of this act, for the stig- 

 matic surface is just on the edge of the cap of the 

 pistil, and the stamens when they dry and curve 

 forward in the later stages of the 

 flower are just long enough to touch 

 this stigmatic edge with any pollen 

 remaining. 



But self-fertilisation is not always 

 merely a resource and a forlorn hope barberry 



