THE STRAWBERRY-TREE 55 



The Arbutus is among the latest of our flowering 

 plants, its loose pendulous clusters of creamy bells, 

 resembling lilies of the valley, but not of quite so 

 dead a white, not opening till September or October. 

 Within each tiny bell-shaped corolla, not half an 

 inch across, ten tiny stamens surround the central 

 column of the style. The ovary is, as it were, the base, 

 a honey-secreting disk the plinth, and the broadened 

 viscid stigma the capital of this column. The ten 

 stamens spring from the base of the corolla-tube, each 

 consisting of short stout filaments coated with hairs 

 and tapering toward the anther. This latter consists 

 of two parallel and united ovoid bags, tapering at each 

 end to a blunt point, each having near one extremity 

 a tail-hke process projecting from it almost at a right 

 angle, whilst at the other end of the anther, when 

 immature, is a viscid, pointed appendage. 



At first the filaments bend outwards towards the 

 corolla, the tails of the anthers hanging towards its 

 base, whilst the viscid point is cemented low down 

 on the style. A change in the direction of growth of 

 the filaments then takes place, and they bend inwards 

 towards the style as they lengthen, causing the anthers 

 to revolve through about 120 degrees on the point 

 cemented to the style, until their tails point towards 

 the mouth of the corolla-tube and their blunt ends are 

 pressed against the style. Then, whUe the viscid point 

 has separated from the style and disappeared, a thin 

 membrane closing the end of the anther also disappears, 

 so that the pollen is only kept in as long as the point ot 

 the anther is against the style. The pendulous blossoms 

 are much visited by bees, wasps, and the later 



