The Red Rattle 



that we have here a most ingenious mechanism, as 

 well as a truly brilliant flower in a small way. There 

 is a very broad lower lip of a beautiful rose-pink 

 colour ; above this is a thin hood of a deeper purplish 

 red, " like a small gaping hook," as someone suggests, 

 but rather in profile, remarkably like a pigeon's head, 

 beak and all. One very curious point is that all the 

 flowers have a peculiar askew look about them 

 because the over-arching hood is not exactly above 

 the centre of the lower lip. This is usually attributed 

 to accident in the particular flowers under observa- 

 tion, but it is really part of the design, for it gives 

 a greater space on one side of the lower lip than on 

 the other, so that bees can more comfortably settle 

 there and probe into the corolla tube, whose throat 

 moreover is also somewhat over towards that side. 

 At the foremost point of the petal hood is a tiny 

 opening, and through this the style protrudes shghtly, 

 thus forming the beak to the pigeon's head. Inside 

 the hood are four stamens, two on either side ; their 

 heads open towards the centre, but, as the opposite 



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