THE EDELWEISS 5 



with its pollen sacks, in the opposite direction, namely, 

 forwards and downwards on to the bee's back. It was 

 easy to see this movement going on, and the consequent 

 dusting of the bee's back with pollen. In somewhat older 

 flowers, which have been relieved of their pollen, the style, 

 St., or free stalk-like extremity of the egg-holding capsule, 

 already as long as the stamens, grows longer and bends 

 down towards the lip or landing-place of the yellow flower. 

 When a pollen-dusted bee alights on one of these maturer 

 flowers the sticky end of the now depending style is gently 

 rubbed by the bee's back and smeared with a few pollen- 

 grains brought by the bee from a distant flower. These 

 rapidly expand into " pollen tubes," or filaments, and, 

 penetrating the long style, reach the egg-germs below. 

 Thus cross-fertilisation is brought about by the bees 

 which come for the nectar of Salvia. The stalks and 

 outer parts of the flower of this plant produce a very 

 sticky secretion which effectually prevents any small 

 insects from crawling up and helping themselves to the 

 nectar exclusively provided for the attraction of the 

 humble-bee, whose services are indispensable. 



As I walked on — a belated Apollo butterfly, with its two 

 red spots, and a pale Swallow-tail fluttered by me. Then 

 some children emerged from unsuspected lurking-places in 

 the wood and offered bunches of edelweiss (Fig. 2). This 

 curious-looking little plant does not grow (as pretended 

 by reporters of mountaineering disasters) exclusively in 

 places only to be reached by a dangerous climb. I have 

 gathered it in meadows on the hillside above Zermatt, and 

 it is common enough in accessible spots. The flowers are 

 like those of our English groundsel and yellow in colour — 

 little " composite " knobs, each built up of many tubular 

 " florets " packed side by side. Six or seven of these little 

 short-stalked knobs of florets are arranged in a circlet 

 around a somewhat larger central knob, and each of them 



