FERTILISATION OF SOME AUSTRALIAN PLANTS. 
407 
connate with three spathulate staminodia, the middle one being much 
wider than the others. The five wide staminodia lean backwards 
towards the centre of the flower, and twist round each other in the 
earlier stages of flowering, so as to completely cut oft* all access to 
the pistil. But when the pollen is all shed from the fertile stamens, 
the staminodia uncurl and lean forward, leaving the way to the stigma 
open. Nectar is secreted at the bases of the anthers, and between 
the anthers and base of the ovulary, so that insects are attracted to 
flowers in both stages. But in proportion to the vast number of flowers 
the production of fruit is very small. Each tree, of course, bears a 
large quantity of capsules, but still not more than 3 or 4 per cent, of the 
blossoms can be fertilised. Indeed, in this tree I have been especially 
struck by the great waste of attractive power. It bears large 
quantities of flowers, attractive from their colour, scent, and nectar, 
and yet only so small a proportion as above ever fulfil their object. 
In another tree of the same natural order — the Elame Tree ( Sterculia 
acerifolia, Cunn.), the same thing occurs. When in flower the tree is 
a mass of scarlet, and yet I have seen half-a-dozen trees without a 
single pod. When about to flower the Flame 'free loses all its leaves, 
or all but a belt round the bottom. The Black Currajong {Sterculia 
diversifolia , G. Don.) also usually loses the greater part of its foliage 
before flowering. Both are popularly supposed in this district to 
flower but once in seven years, but observation does not bear this out, 
some flowering at irregular intervals, and others every two or 
three years. I have not been able to connect their flowering with any 
prevailing or previous meteorological conditions. 
EUPHORBIACE/E. 
Ricinocarpus pinifolius , Desf. — This is a monoecious plant, 
and usually the male flowers are much more numerous than the 
females. Of course such flowers must be cross-fertilised. So far as 
my observations go, beetles of the genus Anaplognathus , which 
frequent the plant to eat the petals, are the agents of fertilisation. 
Some time ago I observed some dozens of plants in flower, and very 
few of them had their petals complete. The beetles I took on the 
flowers were all more or less smeared with pollen. 
LEGUMIN OS/E. 
Goodia loti folia, Salisb. — Sir John Lubbock (2) thinks that 
all the Leguminosse are fertilised by bees, and gives Delpino’s 
classification of the flowers into four groups, viz. : — 
1. Those in which the pressure of the bee forces out a certain 
quantity of pollen, the flower resuming its original position when the 
weight is removed. 
2. Those in which the stamens protrude as well as the pollen, the 
flower resuming its position here also when the insect leaves. 
3. Those in which the flower bursts on pressure and ejects pollen. 
4. Those in which the pressure of the insect causes a brush on 
the end of the pistil to sweep out the pollen. 
To the second of these divisions the species under con- 
sideration belongs. When a bee (and the small native bees are 
