LILIACEAE 451 



pollen-grains as bright-yellow in colour, feebly tuberculate, ellipsoidal, longitudinally 

 furrowed, up to 70 fi long and 30 /x broad, adhering for a long time to the walls of 

 the anther-valves. 



Visitors. — MacLeod (Flanders) observed the honey-bee, 3 short-tongued bees, 

 an Empid, and the beetle Meligethes. 



2745. O. nutans L. (=Myogalum nutans Lam.). (Sprengel, 'Entd. Geh.,' 

 pp. 189-91; Kerner, 'Nat. Hist. PI.,' Eng. Ed. i, II, p. 415-) — The protandrous 

 flowers of this species are vertical while in the bud, and horizontal during the 

 first stage of anthesis, only becoming pendulous towards its end. The anthers 

 of the three stamens situated in front of the small, nectar-secreting pits of the 

 ovary are also dehiscent when the flower opens, and in such a position that they 

 must be brushed against by nectar-seeking insects. 



In a later stage the stigma is receptive, and the stamens bend back against 

 the perianth leaves, so that they leave the way clear for visitors. Insects dusted 

 with pollen from younger flowers now brush the stigma in searching for nectar, 

 and thus effect crossing. 



In the third and last stage of anthesis the peduncle bends so that the blossom 

 becomes pendulous. The stamens are now again bent towards the middle of the 

 flower, and the stigma is situated just below the anthers of the shorter stamens, 

 which still contain pollen, having dehisced during the second stage of anthesis, 

 and so moved their position that nectar-seeking insects were unable to rob them 

 of pollen. The anthers next gradually shrivel up, automatic self-pollination still 

 taking place by fall of pollen. Should insect-visits still take place either cross- 

 or self-pollination is possible. 



2746. O. Boucheanum Aschs. (=0. nutans Z., according to the Index 

 Kewensis). — 



Visitors. — Loew (Berlin Botanic Garden) observed the Telephorid beetle 

 Cantharis rustica Fall., settling. 



2747. O. affine Schult. — 



Visitors. — Loew (Berlin Botanic Garden) observed 2 bees — i. Anthophora 

 pilipes F. i, inserting its proboscis between the anthers; 2. Apis mellifica L. 5, 

 skg., inserting its proboscis to the bases of the widened anthers. 



2748. O. refractum Willd. — 



Visitors. — Schletterer (Pola) observed the small bee Andrena parvula K. 



2749. O. pyrenaicum L. (=0. sulfureum Schull.). — The flowers of this 

 species are pale-green in colour. 



Visitors. — Plateau (Belgium) observed 2 bees — the honey-bee and Prosopis sp. 



885. Scilla L. 



Flowers generally blue, rarely lilac or white in colour ; homogamous or 

 protogynous ; with exposed to half-concealed nectar, secreted by the septal glands 

 of the ovary, and collecting between this organ and the bases of the filaments. 



2750. S. bifolia L. (Kirchner, 'Flora v. Stuttgart,' p. 59.) — The oblique or 

 horizontal flowers of this species expand to a star about 20 mm. in diameter. The 

 anthers, covered with grey pollen, are at the same level as the simultaneously maturing 

 stigma, but so far removed from it that automatic self-pollination does not at first 



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