112 BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS chap. 



sepals, styles, and valves of the capsule are 5, the 

 stamens 10, in number. The plant is perennial. The 

 flowers are visited by flies and small beetles, but in bad 

 weather they remain closed and fertilise themselves ; as 

 also do those of 



S. nodosa, which resembles the preceding, though the 

 leaves are shorter and the petals longer in proportion. 

 It forms small perennial tufts. In some of the flowers 

 the stamens are more or less suppressed. The complete 

 flowers are protandrous. 



Stellaria 



In most of the species of this genus petals are 

 sometimes wanting. 



S. graminea. — The stems are quadrangular and 

 straggling. The petals are narrow and deeply cleft. 

 The nectaries are 5, at the base of the 5 outer 

 stamens. The flowers are protandrous. The five outer 

 stamens just raise themselves over the opening of the 

 flowers, and the anthers open. After a while they 

 bend outwards and downwards, and the inner circle 

 take their place. These then go through the same 

 movements, while the styles elongate, raise themselves, 

 and in their turn eventually curl outwards and down- 

 wards. The result is that insects visiting the flower for 

 the sake of the honey can hardly fail to dust themselves 

 with the pollen of flowers in the first two stages and 

 transfer it to the styles of older flowers. In the absence, 

 however, of insect visits, the styles can hardly fail to come 

 in contact with one or other of the anthers, and thus 

 the flower fertilises itself Besides these complete flowers 

 there are others in which the stamens, or some of them, 

 are more or less incompletely developed. The flowers 

 diff"er considerably in size in diff'erent districts. They 

 are visited by bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and flies. 



S. Holostea (Stitchwort).^ — This species is larger and 

 stronger than the preceding. The structure and life- 

 history of the flower is similar. The nectaries are 

 yellow. The stems are quadrangular. 



