1881. ] On the Fertilization of Calamintha nepeta. 15 
retaining its virility till the stigma matures, it may then emit 
its tubes and fecundate the ovules. 2. An insect dusted with the 
pollen of a flower may revisit the same flower, leaving some of 
its burden on the stigma; or it may possibly deposit freshly 
gathered pollen on the stigma‘as it leaves the flower, but from the 
position of the stigmatic surface this is not likely to happen. 
Ordinarily, however, any flower will be fertilized by pollen from 
another, though from the irregularity with which insects visit the 
flowers of these straggling plants, this is as likely to belong to 
the same stock as to a different one. 
In closing, it may not be out of place to offer a brief compari- 
son of this species with others of the large family of mints 
to which it belongs. In this order, nectar is usually secreted— 
as in the present instance—by a prominent gland that, closely 
adjoining the ovary, is usually more or less prominently four- 
lobed, portions of it filling the angles between the lobes of the 
Jatter organ. Proterandry, or the maturity of the stamens before 
the pistil, is the rule, and is sometimes correlated with motions, 
due to the growth of the parts, by which the anthers and stigma 
at maturity successively occupy the same place with reference © 
to the other parts of the flower. In some cases strongly marked 
proterandry, leading to invariable cross-fertilization, has caused 
the origin of forms with smaller flowers in which the anthers are 
entirely abortive, so that the species becomes gyno-dioecious. 
This is the case, for example, with the related Ca/amintha clino- 
podium.’ Buta careful examination of the species under discus- 
sion did not reveal a similar peculiarity in this case, though fur- 
ther observation, and especially over a more extended territory, 
may, perhaps, reveal something of the sort. According to Dr. 
Miller, L.c., C. clinopodium is visited for its nectar by two lepidop- 
terous insects, Pieris drassice L., and Satyrus hyperanthus L.; 
and Calamintha acinus is visited for nectar and pollen by the 
hive bee, and for nectar by a bombyliid fly, Systeochus sulfureus. 
Mik. From the floral structure of the basil, which is quite com- 
mon in parts of our own country, one would expect its most fre- _ 
quent visitors to be Hymenoptera, and this is supported by what 
we know of the visitors of C. nepeta ; and if so, it is probable that 
careful examination where numbers of the plants grow in com- 
pany will reveal the hive bee as among the more frequent. 
‘Dr. H. Miiller, Befruchtung der Blumen, 1873, Ps 325- 
