FLORAL DEMONSTRATION. 



53 



FLORAL DEMONSTRATION. 



By the Rev. Professor Geokge Henslow, M.A., F.R.H.S., 

 V.M.H., &c. 



[Given March 8, 1898.] 



Peofessok Henslow commenced by alluding to a plant of 

 Iris persica and one of Cyclamen Coum, interesting historically 

 as being the first and fourth plant respectively illustrated in 

 Curtis' "Botanical Magazine," vol. i. They have thus been in 

 cultivation for upwards of a century, but show little if any 

 improvement. 



Specimens of Sarracenia in blossom afforded an opportunity 

 of describing the method of catching insects adopted by this 

 genus, which decay within the trumpet-shaped leaves through 

 bacteria, and afford some nourishment, by absorption, to the 

 host plant ; but under cultivation the flies are often so numerous 

 as to destroy the pitchers themselves, the only preventive being 

 apparently the plugging the mouths with cotton wool. Allusion 

 was made to the fact that in America a certain moth drops its 

 eggs into the decaying debris, when birds subsequently slit open 

 the tubes and extract the grubs. Mr. Henslow had even found 

 the decaying mass of insects full of the grubs of the blow-fly. 

 The flower was described and the movements of the shield-like 

 stigma, first noticed by Mr. W. Gr. Smith, to allow an insect to 

 enter beneath it and then escape with pollen, when the stigma 

 became depressed again. 



Erica and Epacris supplied an illustration of representative 

 plants. Though much alike, but of different orders, the former 

 is from the Cape, the latter from Australia. The interpretation 

 of the similarity is that they both grow under similar climatal 

 conditions, the plants having "responded" to these, and con- 

 sequently assumed a like physiognomy. 



Bryopliyllum calycimm, from Madeira, &c, illustrated a 

 peculiar method of vegetative propagation, inasmuch as the 

 leaflets fall off before decaying and strike root, then produce 

 buds at the notches on the margin. Professor Henslow pointed 

 out the analogy between this and a carpellary leaf with ovules, as 

 exemplified in a Pea pod. 



