46o ANGIOSPERMAE—MONOCOTYLEDONES 



893. Gloriosa. 



2786. G. (Methonica) superba L. (Delpino, ' Sugli appar. d. fecondaz. 

 nelle piante autocarp.,' pp. 23-4 ; Hildebrand, Bot. Ztg., Leipzig, xxv, 1867.) — In 

 the downwardly directed flowers of this species the stamens and style diverge 

 horizontally outwards and serve, Delpino supposes, as alighting-rods for insect 

 visitors. Hildebrand supplements this by asserting that in younger flowers the 

 style, and in older ones the stamens, serve this purpose, so that the former are 

 dusted with pollen from the latter. 



894. Muscari Tourn. 



Bee flowers with juicy tissue at the base of the ovary and the perianth. Grass- 

 mann says that nectar is secreted by the septal glands of the ovary. At the tip of 

 the inflorescence there are usually brightly-coloured, long-stalked flowers, which 

 often remain closed like buds, and are asexual, serving only as an attraction. 



2787. M. botryoides Mill. (= Hyacinthus botryoides Z.). (Herm. Miiller, 

 ' Weit. Beob.,' I, pp. 277-8 ; Kirchner, ' Flora v. Stuttgart,' p. 65.) — In this species 

 a number of bright blue flowers, directed obliquely upwards, and remaining closed 

 with reduced reproductive organs, are found above the dark-blue ones with whitish 

 teeth, which are pendulous to horizontal, and possess well-developed stamens and 

 carpels. They serve to heighten the conspicuousness of the inflorescence. When 

 the perfect flowers open, their anthers and stigma are mature. The almost spherical 

 flowers have contracted small openings, and the anthers dehisce introrsely, so that 

 visitors boring the juicy basal tissue touch some of them with one side of their 

 bodies and the stigma with the other, thus as a rule effecting cross-pollination. 



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

 stated. — 



Herm. Miiller, the honey-bee. Loew (Berlin Botanic Garden), the hover-fly 

 Eristalis aeneus Scop., settling on the outside of the corolla, and 2 bees — i . Andrena 

 fulva Schr. 5, skg. ; 2. Apis mellifica L. 5, boring for sap. 



2788. M. comostim Mill. ( = Hyacinthus comosus Z.). (Knuth, ' Bliitenbiol. 

 Beob. a. d. Ins. Capri,' pp. 25-7; Schulz, ' Beitrage,' II, p. 170; Sprengel, ' Entd. 

 Geh.,' p. 201.) — The plants belonging to this species that I examined in the island of 

 Capri possessed an inflorescence which, during the bud stage, was only a few centi- 

 metres long, and was contracted into a spike ; later, however, by elongation of the 

 axis, a raceme of 20-30 cm. was developed. The upper 20-30 flowers remain 

 sterile ; they are deep-blue in colour, and develop upwardly directed stalks, 1-2 cm. 

 in length, of the same colour. They are completely closed and asexual. Below 

 them are some open flowers with reduced pistils and finally, below these, 30-40 

 blossoms with fully developed stamens and carpels. Schulz describes the colouring 

 of the perianth (at Bozen) as pale greyish-yellow, marked with bright metallic brown 

 towards the edge. The flowers examined by him possessed a perianth 7-12 mm. 

 long and 4-1 2 mm. wide ; those at Capri are 8 mm. long on an average. They are 

 homogamous, the anthers being situated close under the stigma, so that automatic 

 self-pollination takes place if insect-visits fail. Otherwise cross-pollination is favoured. 



