CnkEsEMAN.— Notes on the Fertilization of Glossostigma. 855 
to avoid touching the upper part of the style, which would then move back 
and expose theanthers. On retiring, the insect would in all probability dust 
itself over with pollen, but it would not by this effect the fertilization of the 
flower, as the stigma would then be closely applied to the upper lip of the 
corolla, —entirely out of its path. But let the same insect visit a second 
flower, and itis then every way likely that some of the pollen would be 
rubbed off by the stigma, which as we have seen, would be naturally 
touched on the first entrance of an insect. I have not been able to syste- 
matieally watch the flowers so as to ascertain what species are instrumental 
in transferring the pollen, but I have twice observed small Diptera engaged 
in sueking the flowers. Several of these I caught, and found grains of 
pollen on the foreheads of some of them. The common red ant is often 
found crawling over the plant, and I have seen one emerge from a flower 
with the front of its head thickly covered with yellow pollen, thus proving 
that this species may play no unimportant part in the fertilization of the 
plant. Their visits would not, however, be so beneficial as those of winged 
insects, which would be more likely to bring pollen from distinct plants, 
and thus effect a more advantageous cross. 
Late in autumn the plants are usually covered with capsules, so 
that, if fertilization is chiefly performed by insects, they certainly fulfil 
their duties in an effectual manner. In old flowers that have been seldom 
visited it often happens that pollen drops from the anther-cells on to the 
face of the style bent down just below; and I perhaps too hastily concluded 
that self-fertilization would thus inevitably take place if from any reason 
the flowers were not visited by insects. I did not, until almost too late in 
the season, pay sufficient attention to the difference existing between the 
two surfaces of the expanded portion of the style; and I am now inclined 
to believe that only one is stigmatiferous—the posterior one, or that turned 
to the back of the flower when the style is erect, and to the front when it 
is eurved over the stamens. Certainly this surface alone possesses well. 
developed stigmatie papille, and on it alone have I been able to observe the 
development and intrusion of the pollen-tubes. If this view is correct, 
self-fertilization would be almost, if not altogether, impossible. 
The movements of tle style in Glossostigma form the most curious 
example of irritability in the female reproductive organs of plants that I 
am acquainted with, exeepting that produced by a slight touch on the 
gynostemium of Stylidium. The closing together of the two arms of the 
style in Mimulus and allied genera is analogous ; but in the case of these 
plants the movement is rarely through a greater angle than 60° or 70°, and 
is usually much less; while in Glossostigma the point of the style moves 
through an are of at least 1807. On referring to the description given by 
