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rOPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
carry it off to another flower. That the flies do thus act any- 
one may easily convince himself, if he watch a Lopezia for a 
short time. Sometimes the staminal hood appears to spring 
back, and to liberate the polliniferous anther without the aid of 
an insect, a mere current of air sufficing to produce the move- 
ment. But in this case the pollen is not necessarily wasted ; 
when emitted, it adheres to the sticky surface of the glands, 
and an insect which afterwards comes to enjoy the glandular 
secretions will get many of the grains on its head and proboscis. 
The insect then, smeared with pollen, flies off to another 
flower. If this be in a more advanced condition, the stamens 
will have withered up and disappeared ; but the style, which was 
in the earlier flower short and immature, will have lengthened 
and developed at its termination a large viscid stigma, which 
occupies just that place which in the freshly opened blossom 
was occupied by the hood. It is plain that the insect which 
came into contact in the one flower with the hood, will now 
come in contact with the Stigma, and will convey to its viscid 
surface the pollen grains with which it is smeared. 
In Lopezia, then, the fecundation follows the same rule as in 
salvia and in mallows. The more advanced flowers are fertil- 
ised by the pollen of the less advanced ones. The same rule 
applies to the last plant of which I shall say anything, the blue 
larkspur of our gardens. 
The strange irregularity of this flower is utterly unintelligible, 
excepting on the hypothesis that it is intended to promote in- 
tercrossing. On that hypothesis all is perfectly simple. 
The two upper petals are transformed into glandular organs, 
and secrete a sweet fluid for the purpose of attracting bees or 
other insects. The posterior sepal is moulded into a spurlike 
cavity, into which this fluid is poured, and in which it is re- 
tained. The two lower petals are so shaped and placed as to 
form a convenient landing-place, on which a bee must light in 
order to get at the nectary. The same petals also serve as a 
protection to the stamens and pistil. These they roof over 
and guard from the rain and wind, and also from the direct 
contact of insects, which might otherwise disperse the pollen 
vaguely. It will at once be seen, on examining a flower, that 
when a bee lights on the landing place, the stamens and pistil 
lie undej-neath it out of harm’s way. When the flower first 
expands, the stamens all hang downwards and forwards, and 
their anthers are not quite mature. Still more immature are 
the stigmas at this time. Soon after the flower has opened the 
stamens ripen, one by one, in succession, and each as it ripens 
turns upwards, clianging its position, until the anther is brought 
to occupy the fissure which exists between the lower part of the 
two inferior petals; of those two petals, that is, which above 
