Trelease.} 
422 
[March 15, 
tunate guess has been seized upon by the opponents of the pre- 
vailing theory of the mutual relations between flowers and their 
pollinators, as may be supposed ; and it doubtless produced an 
adequate effect when presented to the French Association in the 
fine satire of M. Bonnier (1, 425). The “many memoirs on the 
mutual adaption of the Australian Proteaceae and the tongue 
of the kangaroo ” to which M. Bonnier refers have, however, 
unfortunately escaped me. 
Briefly stated, most if not all of the Proteaceae, although 
apparently adapted to self-fertilization, are so formed as to favor 
crossing, sometimes to the exclusion of the former. Those species 
which have been studied do not differ from other plants in their 
pollinators, which include bees, butterflies, and three distinct 
groups of birds, the Nectarinidae, Meliphagidae and Trichoglossi- 
dae. 
Rutaceae. 
Diosma ericoides, (S. Africa). — The small white corolla has a 
slightly bell-shaped tube, with a spreading limb, figs. 17-19. 
The five fertile stamens alternate with the petals, to which they 
are not joined. Five rudimentary filaments are attached to the 
petals below; above, lying in a median groove bounded by strong 
ridges, fig. 20. The pistil, with its deeply-lobed ovary, round 
style, and capitate stigma, occupies the center of the flower, and is 
surrounded by a large cup-shaped gland, deeply segmented. In 
the newly opened flower neither stamens nor pistil are mature. 
The style is very short and the stigma dry and unreceptive. The 
polliniferous stamens are shorter than the petals, and their large 
yellow anthers, each snugly fitting the space between the median 
crests of the alternating petals, nearly close the tube above the 
stigma, fig. 18. I could not convince myself that at this time 
the flower contains any nectar. Presently one of the filaments 
elongates and bends forward so as to bring its dehiscing anther 
into the axis of the flower. Here it remains for some time, the 
melon-shaped grains of pollen remaining in the anther cells 
unless removed by a touch or a forcible jar. From this stage on, 
nectar may be found in small quantities secreted by the cup-shaped 
gland previously mentioned. After a time the mature stamen 
becomes erect and presses closely against the petals, being now 
