342 



BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS 



CHAP. 



disperse tlie pollen.'' As in many other wind flowers 

 the pollen is dry and dusty, but the bees moisten it 

 with honey from their proboscis, which makes it easy to 

 collect. The Plantains illustrate the difference between 

 broad leaves, which tend to be horizontal, and narrow 



ones, which tend to be vertical. 

 Thus P. media (Fig. 226) has 

 broad leaves, which lie flat on the 

 ground, and P. lanceolata has 

 narrow ones, which point upwards 

 (see also Drosera, p. 203). The 

 seeds secrete a mucilaginous adhe- 

 sive substance, which exudes freely 

 as soon as they are moistened, 

 and serves to fasten them if they 

 meet with damp earth. We have 

 five species. One, P. maritima, 

 has narrow linear leaves ; one, 

 P. Coronopus, deeply toothed or 

 pinnatifid leaves ; in the other 

 three they are broad and entire. P. lanceolata has 

 short round heads ; the last two, slender spikes ; P. 

 major with reddish brown, yellowish, or white, P. 

 m,edia with pink or purple anthers. 



P. major. — Anthers reddish brown, but according to 

 Ludwig sometimes yellow, greenish yellow, or white. 

 The plant is glabrous or bears appressed hairs. The 

 seeds are small, faintly rugose, somewhat flat, and 

 covered by a layer of mucilage. 



P. media. — Anthers pink or purple. This species 

 forms a passage from a wind flower to an insect flower. 

 The long flexible filaments and feathery stigma are 

 characteristic of a wind flower ; while the violet anthers 

 and the scent serve to attract insects. Some flowers 

 have anthers only, and others only the pistil. These 

 also are sometimes monoecious, sometimes dioecious, so 

 that there are five forms of flower. The plant is 

 covered with short hairs. 



^ Kerner, Natural History of Plants, vol. ii. 



Fia. 226. — Plantago media. 



