318 PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY, ETC: 
the wise provision of nature in fecundating this 
seemingly trifling flower! Other instances of this 
kind could be mentioned. The dichogamic plants 
can be in no other way fecundated than by insects. 
Many flowers blossom in succession on one plant, 
and the restless insect, which flies from one flower 
to another, carries the pollen to them all. Epilo- 
bium angustifolium may serve as an instance of male 
Dichogamy, and Euphorbia Cyparissias, as an in- 
stance of female Dichogamy. Homogamic flowers, 
that is, such flowers as have their male and female 
organs of generation formed at the same time, are 
mostly impregnated by themselves. Several, how- 
ever, are visited by insects, which complete what 
perhaps was not completed in the usual way, or 
what rain, wind, or unfavourable weather inter- 
rupted at the proper period. 
In these flowers, the following arrangement is 
made: When the stamens are larger than the 
pistil, the flower stands either upright, and the sta- 
mens incline themselves over the pistil; or it lies 
horizontally, and the stamens curve themselves 
archways towards the style, so as to become of 
the same length with the pistil. Of the first kind 
the Parnassia palustris is an instance. In it the 
stamens, five in number, recline all over the pistil 
in the following order: First, one of the stamens 
places itself across the stigma, lets its pollen go, 
then rises up and resumes its former position. In 
the mean time the second is already following in 
the same manner, and as soon as the first rises from 
the stigma, the other covers it; the third succeeds 
like 
