528 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



prominenfc crimson pistils in ample rows on the lower third of its globose flesh y 

 body; above this female element are the yellow stamiual bodies in equ-ally 

 ample rows with their anthers discharging their copious deeper yellow pollen j 

 this male portion occupies the middle third of the flowe?-stalk. The apper 

 third of the t-padis is conical, crimpled and of deep purple coloin*. Now let me 

 tell yon, alfchongh the whole of this arrangement is e.-^quisitely beautiful in 

 colour, when the ftower-stalk matures you can have no idea how offensive the 

 plant is. I had hitherto no knowledge of the fact that, at tbe time for the 

 pollen to escape, the whole spadix literally smells like a rotting cai'cass. 

 I noticed it in this plant in my own studio. One evening on entering my room 

 I smelt what I thought was a dead rat. As I neared this plant on my table, 

 I found to my horror that the smell emanated from it, and that there was a 

 swarm of blue-bottles over and around it. Now you know that these 

 creatures love the decaying carcass. Here was an object as deeply black as a 

 decaying elephant emitting the odour of rotting organic matter. Whj^ should 

 they not be attracted by it ? 1 remembered at once that I had read some- 

 where to the effect that the blue-bottles and other carcass-flies seek flowers 

 bearing the colour of decaying animal matter, and that at that moment I was 

 realizing the fact. The offensive odour lasted three full days. Of course 

 when I first discovered the smell, I had the plant removed to a lower room. 

 Every day I had it brought to my studio, and the moment it was left to stand 

 near an open window the flies swarmed over it and deposited their eggs, 

 which if I had allowed to remain would have filled the spadix with maggots. 

 After three days the pollen was thrown out in abundant frills from every one 

 of the anthers, and then the flies disappeared; and now you observe there is 

 hardly any smell you would call offensive. Such is the history of Ihe pollination 

 of this curious specimen of inflorescence among flowering plants. The spadix 

 of Shewla {Pythonium WdlUcManam) is equally offensive as the male and 

 female organs mature. 



A review of flowers, however brief, would be incomplete if the conditions 

 necessary for their growth and development are not considered. The considera- 

 tion of these conditions is all the more necessary inasmuch as we require no 

 hot-house. In fact, the country is a veritable hot-house in itself. I shall there- 

 fore make a few observations on the essential condition of the growth of our 

 flowers. Flowers are produced when the sap is in a highly concentrated state. 

 It must be perfectly elaborated before the floral organs, such as the petals and 

 sepals, pistil and stamens, develop. Formed of such well-formed material, 

 though orginially were modifications of a leaf, the floral whorls as a body have 

 a higher organization and a higher state of existence which finally tends to the 

 formation and maturation of the fruit and seed, wherewith to propagate their 

 species and perpetuate their kind. It is now a well-established fact in vege- 

 table physiology that for such elaboration of the vital fluid of a plant, a suffi- 

 cient amount of sunlight is essential ; without it plants are unable to perform 

 their proper function. That sunlight is one of the essential conditions of the 



