THE WINTER-GREEN— continued. 
incurved, and white, pinkish, or yellowish in colour. The ten included stamens are 
hypogynous, with filaments which are at first curved outwards, i.e . towards the petals, 
and large anthers, each opening by two pores at their base. The anthers are kept in 
this position by the incurved petals ; but when insect-visitors push back the petals 
the curvature of the filament changes to an inward direction and the anther becomes 
reversed, so that the pollen falls downward on to the insect. The pollen-grains 
remain permanently united into “ tetrads,” or groups of four, by the persistence of 
the walls of the “ pollen-mother-cells,” each of which gives origin to four grains. 
There is a single style divided above into five short lobes, and the ovary is five- 
chambered with numerous minute ovules springing from a spongy central placenta. 
The fruit is a globular capsule with the persistent calyx below it, and it splits 
loculicidally into five valves from below upwards, the margins of the valves being 
connected by a web of hairs. The seeds are minute, but elongated at both ends, with 
a loose testa, and so light as to be readily dispersed by wind. 
There are some fifteen species, of which four, somewhat closely related, are 
natives of Britain. Pyrola media Swartz, for which Sir James Edward Smith uses 
the name Intermediate Winter-green , has its leaves crenate, its sepals shorter than the 
stamens, and the style straight and twice as long as the stamens, so that it projects 
considerably from the corolla. The stigma consists of a ring round the apex of the 
style below the five lobes, which are also receptive. 
All the species are woodland or heath plants, occurring especially in the Pine- 
forests and Pine-heaths of the north. The Rev. E. A. Woodruffe-Peacock has an 
interesting note, in the “Journal of Botany ” for 1914, with regard to the indication 
of Pine-woods no longer existing by the species of this genus. 
“In Lincolnshire,” he writes, “some most curious facts come out of a historical consideration of the position in the 
past of our only species, P. minor. The great block of parishes for which it is recorded lies on the eolian sands at the foot of 
the escarpment of the wolds for a distance of eight miles north and south of Market Rasen. Now on these sands Pinui 
sylvestris grew as a self-sown species from prehistoric times till about 1840, if not later. Beyond this area Pyrola is found in 
a few isolated spots. These places are worth careful study to see whether it is a good and safe index species of ancient, but 
now departed, pinesques in this county.” 
Like not a few plants which flourish in acid humus, the species of Pyrola have 
astringent and tonic properties ; but they are not now in any way utilised. 
