Vellow and Orange 



economical products without petals, which ripen abundant self- 

 fertilized seed (see p. io8). It is calculated that each jewel-weed 

 blossom produces about two hundred and fifty pollen grains ; 

 yet each is by no means able to produce seed in spite of its 

 prodigality. Nevertheless, enough cross-fertilized seed is set to 

 save the species from the degeneracy that follows close inbreed- 

 ing among plants as well as animals. In England, where this 

 jewel-weed is rapidly becoming naturalized, Darwin recorded 

 there are twenty plants producing cleistogamous flowers to one 

 having showy blossoms which, even when produced, seldom set 

 seed. What more likely, since hummingbirds are confined to the 

 New World ? Therefore why should the plant waste its energy 

 on a product useless in England ? It can never attain perfection 

 there until humming birds are imported, as bumblebees had to be 

 into Australia before the farmers could harvest seed from their 

 clover fields (p. loi). 



Familiar as we may be with the nervous little seed pods of 

 the touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the 

 seeds fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother's garden, 

 they still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the 

 delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning 

 response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes 

 land four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with 

 the other odds against which all plants have to contend, how 

 many generations must it take to fringe even one mill pond with 

 jewel-weed; yet this is rapid transit indeed compared with many 

 of Nature's processes. The plant is a conspicuous sufferer from 

 the dodder (see p. 246). 



The Pale Touch-me-not (/. aurea) — /. pallida of Gray — most 

 abundant northward, a larger, stouter species found in similar 

 situations, but with paler yellow flowers only sparingly dotted if 

 at all, has its broader sac-shaped sepal abruptly contracted into a 

 short, notched, but not incurved spur. It shares its sister's popu- 

 lar names. 



Velvet Leaf; Indian Mallow; American Jute 



{Abutilon Abuiilon) Mallow family 

 {A. Avicennae of Gray) 



Flowers — Deep yellow, y-z^oyl, in. broad, s-parted, regular, solitary 

 on stout peduncles from the leaf axils. Stem: 3 to 6 ft. high, 

 velvety, branched. Leaves: Soft velvety, heart-shaped, the 

 lobes rounded, long petioled. Fruit: In a head about i in. 



314 



