258 BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS chap. 



are upright in sunny weather, pendulous at night and 

 when it rains. 



Specularia 



Remarkable for the long triangular ovary. Flowers 

 sessile. Corolla blue, very open. 



S. hybrida. — A corn-field weed, chiefly in the eastern 

 counties. The flowers are protandrous. The style is 

 clothed with hairs, on which the pollen is deposited. It 

 is used by insects as an alighting stage, and they can 

 hardly fail to carry off some of the pollen. Every even- 

 ing the corolla folds up longitudinally, and the five pro- 

 jecting angles also dust themselves. The three stigmas 

 open out when mature, and insects coming from another 

 flower deposit pollen on them. When the flower folds 

 up at night they come in contact with the pollen on the 

 projecting ridges of the corolla. 



Wahlenbergia 



The pistil secretes a viscid fluid, to which the pollen 

 adheres. 



W. hederacea. — A graceful, prostrate plant, glabrous, 

 with delicate ivy -shaped leaves. The flowers are on long 

 stalks, and pale blue, with darker veins. The filaments 

 widen gradually downwards, and after the anthers have 

 shrivelled up the broad base remains as a protection to 

 the honey. A South-western European plant, found in 

 bogs and damp woods in our southern and especially in 

 the western counties. 



EEICACE.E 



Stamens sometimes equal in number to, but generally 

 twice as many as, the divisions of the calyx or corolla ; 

 cells of ovary as many, sometimes apparently twice as 

 many. Fruit a capsule or berry. Flowers, as a rule, 

 with honey. 



