104 BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS chap. 



are free, or slightly connected at the base. The petals 

 are distinct, but held together by the sepals so as to 

 form a tube. The flowers generally secrete honey, or a 

 sweet sap, for which insects bore into the tissues. Most 

 of the group are fertilised by insects, but Silene Otites 

 is a wind-flower. In many species besides the herma- 

 phrodite, there are female flowers. Some are dicBcious. 

 The hermaphrodite flowers are generally the largest, 

 and then the male, while the female are the smallest. 

 The stamens are normally 10, often, however, reduced 

 to 5. They are in two series, and the most usual 

 sequence is that the five outer anthers ripen first, then 

 the inner series, and then the styles. This we should 

 expect from the development of the plant, as the outer 

 are of course the earlier series. In some cases, however, 

 the styles are ripe before the anthers. In many cases 

 the flowers close at night and in bad weather. Some 

 have cleistogamous as well as normal flowers. Others 

 are night flowers. The ovary in most cases forms a 

 capsule which eventually opens generally by five or ten 

 teeth, and the plant, swaying with the wind, ejects the 

 seeds. The dehiscence is due to the fact that the outer 

 cells contract more than the inner layers. 



DiANTHTJS 



The fruit, is a capsule, ovoid, and with many seeds. 

 It opens at the summit by four teeth or short valves, 

 and the seeds are jerked out by the wind. 



D. prolifer. — The flowers are small, pink, in compact 

 heads, gynodioecious and gynomonoecious ; the herma- 

 phrodite flowers are homogamous. The flowers, being 

 small, and the honey sparing, are but little visited by 

 insects, but as the anthers and stigma ripen simul- 

 taneously, they easily fertilise themselves. According 

 to Kerner they live two days, and are open from 8 a.m. 

 to 1 P.M. The seeds are black or dark brown, smooth 

 on the concave ventral face, and with obtuse, elevated 

 points on the convex portion. 



D. deltoides. — Flowers solitary or two together, on 



