BRITISH FLOWERlISrG PLANTS 



Tig. 2. — Lamimn avi- 

 jilexicaule. Cleis- 

 togamous flower. 



Fig. 3, 



plants have a second kind in which the petals are absent, 

 or at any rate minute, and which do not open. For 

 instance, in some of the Violets — V. odorata, canina 

 (p. 98), etc., — besides the blue flowers with which we 

 are all so familiar, there are others almost without 

 petals and stamens, which indeed have scarcely the 



appearance of true 

 flowers, but in which 

 numerous seeds are 

 produced. " Cleisto- 

 gamous " flowers, as 

 these have been called, 

 occur in Lamium am- 

 plexicaule (Fig. 2), 

 Oxalis Acetosella, Tn- 

 folium suhterraneum, 

 and other plants be- 

 longing to very different 

 groups. 



The flowers of water 

 plants also fall into certain well-marked groups. 



In the first we may place those which have a con- 

 spicuous coloured flower and are adapted for fertilisation 

 by insects : as, for instance, the Water-lilies, Water 

 Eanunculi, Limnanthemum, Hottonia, Utricularia, 

 Lobelia Dortmanna, Alisma, Hydrocharis, Stratiotes. 



These project singly, or in terminal bunches, above 

 the water. They have undergone no special modifica- 

 tion, though the flower-stalk is more or less strengthened 

 so as to maintain them in an upright position, and the 

 leaves are often arranged so as to serve the same purpose. 

 Hair -like outgrowths are sometimes found in the flower 

 {e.g. Limnanthemum) which will prevent the nectar 

 from being flooded by water which may be splashed in. 

 They are generally white or yellow, which makes them 

 more conspicuous against the bluish water. Lobelia 

 Dortmanna is the only blue flower in the group, but, as 

 Schenck says,^ we must remember that blue is in any 



' Die Biologic der TVasscrgewachse, 



