320 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



One would like to ask, how is it that spurs so often contain 

 nectar ? One would have to ask another question also, viz., 

 Are insects always in search of nectar, and nothing else ? Is it 

 not possible that in hot sunny days they are in search of water, 

 whether sweetened with sugar or not ? 



In India, in the hot dry weather, I have seen flocks of little 

 yellow butterflies on the edge of a pool of water apparently 

 sucking in moisture. I have seen wasps on the outside of water- 

 casks apparently doing the same thing. 



Now, there is transpiration from all the soft parts of plants, 

 which evaporates, and we never see it. Within the spurs it is 

 possible for it to condense, and remain there in minute drops. 

 Insects in search of water or nectar would soon find out these 

 little buckets containing liquid. One can then understand that 

 the frequent visits of insects, tickling the inside of a spontaneously 

 formed spur, if it happened to condense the transpired vapour, 

 might increase the supply, and with it, a tendency to cellular 

 multiplication, and hypertrophy. 



There does not appear, however, any reason to doubt that 

 spurs do sometimes come out ready made,'without any apparent 

 previous inheritance. 



In the Ranunculacese we can trace the successive steps from a 

 pouch to a spur. For instance, in Aconitum Napellus, we have 

 one sepal pouched ; in ^. Lycoctonum^l that pouch becomes a 

 pouched spur ; and in Delphinium peregrinuni and Staphysagria, 

 the latter becomes a conical and^ [tubular spur. The two 

 modified petals, which in A. Napellus were wholly nestling 

 within the hood or pouch, in the Delphinium only a part of the 

 petals becomes long spurred, and fits closely in the spur of the 

 calyx. 



Then in Hellehorus fcetidus all the petals become tubular ; 

 that is, the whole petal becomes a spur ; while in Aquilegia all the 

 petals are long spurred.* 



At the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society of the 

 9th June 1891 I saw a double Aquilegia. Some of the stamens 

 of the central tassel had become petaloid,'and were standing out 

 separately from the other spurred petals. ^These petaloid stamens 

 had anthers on the edges of their little spurs. 



* See H. Baillon's " Histoire des Plantes." 



