8o 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
April, 1922 
“A PRETTY LITTLE PROBLEM.” 
It is pleasing to know that Professor Sydney B. J. 
Skertchly (a founder of the Queensland Field Naturalists ? 
Club) has taken over the science column in the Brisbane 
Courier, for some time ably conducted by the late Dr. J. 
Shirley. In his notes of the issue of the 22nd April he 
has some remarks to offer on the beautiful native flower 
known most commonly as the Fringed Violet ( Thysanotns 
tuberosus). Professor Skertchly writes : — 
‘‘Patience is essential to a true observer. Here is a pretty little 
problem you may help me to solve. For the last two years I have been 
trying to find out the weather (or other) conditions which induce 
our lovely Fringed Violet ( TJiysanotm ) to open in the morning or 
remain closed. The royal purple, tasselled beauties abound in our 
home paddock, and when they are flowering I have missed few days 
in which I have hot done them homage. Sometimes I was sure they 
kept shut iu abnormally hot, dry weather, only to find them glorying 
in the sunshine after having rigorously refused for days to open. 
Then again, I have been almost as sure it was dull weather they 
dislike; only to be foiled again. I am no nearer the solution than 
last year. With ns they open between eight and nine in the morning, 
and close soon after noon, never to reopen. The act of closing takes 
-from ten minutes to half an hour, and the action is very pretty to 
watch. First, the fringe at the tip of the petals folds over, then the 
side-1 ri ages are laid atop, and finally the whole of the fringed 
appendage (for the true petal is quite a narrow thing) is wrapped 
up. Our specimens have never studied botany, for they never twist 
their sepals after flowering as the fruit ripens, as the text-books tell 
us is their bounden duty.* * 
“If you have a microscope, even a low-powered one, examine a 
petal, and you will he enchanted wtili the orderly arrangement of the 
colour-bodies. If you wish to paint the flower you will find yourself 
bothered at first with the red light that streams through it when 
seen by . partly transmitted light. T find it best, first, to lay in a 
ground of pure carmine, and before it is quite dry to run over a light 
wash of Prussian blue — cobalt and ultramarine are fatal. 1 don’t find 
Thysanotu-s very attractive to insects, though I have seen them buzzing 
all round as I lay observing; but, with us at any rate they seem to get 
on pretty well without them, for hardly a flower misses seeding, though 
it. is open but for four hours at most. Now for a bit of that caution 
I have been inculcating. What f have recorded of the ways of 
Fringed Violets is what 1 know by close, continued accurate observa 
tion to be true for Molemlinar by the Nerang River side. Whether 
it holds good everywhere 1 cannot say, but you may help me to 
determine. 8ome of the results of my own observations on flowers 
seem to be so opposite from those of other writers that one pauses 
before expressing an opinion.” 
* G. Beni ham in “Flora Australiensis ” ; F. M. Bailey in the 
* ‘ Queensland Floi a, ’ ? &c, — Bps, 
