Bell Flowers. 283 



spread regularly away from the base of the corolla, and from 

 the top of the ovary. The corolla has very regularly the figure 

 of a bell, except that it is too narrow at the base ; its border 

 is divided, into five lobes, which show tnat it is made up of 

 five petals, and it is veined in a pretty and peculiar manner. 

 From the base of the corolla, and consequently from the sum- 

 mit of the ovary, spring five stamens whose filaments are 

 broad, firm, and fringed, curving inwards at the base, and 

 bending over the top of the ovary, as if to guard it from injury ; 

 their points touch the style and keep the anthers parallel and 

 in contact with it till they shivel up and fall back, which hap- 

 pens immediately after the flower unfolds. The style is a stiff 

 taper column about the length of the corolla and longer than 

 the stamens. It is covered all over up to the very tips of the 

 stigma with stiff hairs, which Nature has provided to sweep 

 the pollen out the cells of the anthers, as the style passes 

 through them in lengthening ; if it were not for this simple but 

 effectual contrivance, as the anthers burst as soon as ever the 

 corolla opens, their pollen would drop out of the nodding flow- 

 ers and be lost before the stigma was exposed and ready to 

 , receive the fertilizing influence ; the hands of the style catch the 

 pollen and keep it till insects, wind, or accident brush it down 

 upon the inverted stigmas. The ovary is a case containing 

 three cavities or cells surrounding a central axis ; in each cell 

 there is a large fleshy receptacle over which is spread a multi- 

 tude of ovules. After the stigma is fertilized, the corolla and 

 the stamens drop off, the sepals harden, enlarge, and collapse, 

 all the parts become browner and thicker, stout ribs appear in 

 the substance of the ovary which droops still more than the 

 flower itself, and at last a general dryness, hardness, and 

 brownness, announce that the ripening of the fruit is accom- 

 plished. But how are dust-like seeds ever to find their way 

 out of this lidless box, or to penetrate its tough sides? Con- 

 sidering what happens in so many other plants, we should 

 naturally expect that it would take place by a separation of 

 the edges of the three carpels, into valves near their points ; 

 but upon looking at the top of the ovary between the sepals, 

 we find that part still tougher than the sides, and without the 

 slightest appearance of an opening. It is by a rending of the 



