FURTHER STUDIES OF YUCCAS. 211 



old fruits both at Newhall and Caliente. The only other 

 insects observed by me in the flowers, were small flies and 

 beetles similar to those so frequently seen in the flowers of 

 the Yuccas, a few small bees, and on one occasion, hive 

 bees. The latter were primarily attracted by an abundant 

 watery fluid on the outside of the flowers, of undiscovered 

 origin,* and entered the flowers only incidentally. The 

 others gathered nectar from the base of the corolla, where 

 the nectar grooves open. Neither were seen to touch either 

 the anthers or stigma, and it is doubtful if they carry pollen 

 from one to the other, even by accident, which is the only 

 way in which this could happen. 



From its pronounced fragrance, which while it is of the 

 general yucca type somewhat recalls that of the tuberose, 

 its active nectar glands, pollen aggregated into crude 

 pollinia, and large capitate stigma covered with long moist 

 papillae, Whipplei would appear quite likely to be pol- 

 linated by visitors other than Pronuba ; and, as Professor 

 Riley has well said, of all the Yuccas it would seem to be 

 most easily self-fertilizable. In fact, in the lower part of 

 the Cajon Pass when the species was in the best of its 

 blooming period, very few Pronubas were seen ; and, while 

 there was a corresponding scarcity of setting fruit, a few 

 plants were found with more or less abundant, partly 

 developed but unusually diminutive capsules in which no 

 oviposition scars could be detected, and some of the fruit 

 of the preceding year was of the same dwarf character and 

 without either escape holes or the masses of tunneled seeds 

 almost invariably seen in old capsules elsewhere. Frequent 

 observation has shown that the pollinia may be deposited 

 on the margin of the stigma directly from the anthers in 

 closing flowers, particularly the small ones to which these 

 dwarf capsules correspond ; and it was, therefore, with no 

 little surprise that I noted, in contrast with this apparent 

 power of self-fertilization, that with this single exception, no 



* See note under baccata for the occurrence of a similar exudation i 

 species of Yucca proper. 



