ERICACEAE 43 



Visitors. — Schletteier (Pola), 2 bees (Andrena carbonaria Z., numerous, and 

 A. morio Brull., freq.) and a wasp (Polistes galUca i.). 



1767. E. carnea L. (Herm. MuJIer, 'Aipenblumen/ pp. 382-5.)— Although 

 the flowers of this species possess a bell-shaped corolla with its opening directed 

 downward, Hermann Miiller says they are adapted to the visits of butterflies and not 

 to those of bees. That they belong to class Lb is shown by their beaulifuJ red 

 colour, and the narrow mouth of the corolla, which is so completely filled up by the 

 stamens that only the thin proboscis of a Lepidopterid can make its way past or 

 between them. 



By summer or autumn the next year's flowers are developed as green buds, and 

 Linnaeus even described plants in this condition as a distinct species E. herbacea. 

 When the snow has melted, therefore, blossoming can at once take place. The' 

 flowers are rendered conspicuous, not only by the bright-red calyx and corolla, but 

 also by the still more vividly coloured flower-stalks and the strongly exserted red 

 style. The dark-brown anthers, devoid of appendages, are also exserted, so that 

 insects flying to the flowers first touch the stigma, and then strike against the anthers, 

 which dust them with pollen tetrads. Automatic self-pollination is excluded, for the 

 stigmatic tip of the style is not capitate but truncate. Kerner says that as in Calluna 

 the flowers are pollinated by the wind towards the end of anthesis. 



Visitors. — The following were recorded by the observers, and for the localities 

 stated. — 



Herm. Miiller (Alps), almost exclusively a butterfly (Vanessa cardui L.), but 

 humble-bees very occasionally. A. Schulz (Tyrol) noticed the latter more frequently 

 (' Beitrage '). Friese (Innsbruck), the bee Osmia bicolor Schr. $ and 5, skg. ; (Fiume), 

 the bee Andrena extricata Sm. Knuth (Kiel Botanic Garden), the humble-bee Bombus 

 hortorum L., skg. 



525. Bruckenthalia Reichb. 

 Bell-shaped nectarless flowers ; entomophilous and anemophilou?. 



1768. B. spiculifolia Reichb. (=Erica Bruckenthalii 6]*;-^;;^.). (Loew, ' Blu- 

 tenbiol. Floristik,' p. 269.) — This species is native to Greece, the Siebengebirge, and 

 Hungary. Loew investigated plants cultivated in the Berlin Botanic Garden, and 

 gives the following account.— 



The small pink flowers possess rounded bells about 3 mm. long and 2 mm. 

 broad, which are arranged in small racemes i^ cm. in length. The style projects 

 for about 2 mm. from the throat of the corolla, which is completely filled by the 

 brown anthers. These are devoid of appendages, and borne on slender filaments, the 

 bases of which are connected into a narrow ring. The anther-pores are downwardly 

 directed, and the pollen is extremely powder}-, while its grains are not united into 

 tetrads. The round red stigma becomes receptive before the anthers dehisce, and 

 its surface bears four secretory punctiform projections. It is protected against faUing 

 pollen-grains by its position. Pollination seems to be largely effected by the wind, 

 as well as b}- insects. 



