1882 .] 
427 
[Trelease. 
Labiatae. 
Salvia, (Tropical America). — In February 1881 I showed the 
adaptation of Salvia splendens to cross-fertilization by the aid of 
humming-birds, in a short communication to the Society. The 
substance of that communication was published in the “ Amer- 
ican Naturalist ” for April 1881, p. 265-9. It was, so far as I 
know, the first instance in which the details of the adaptation to 
birds had been described for any species of the genus, although a 
number of scarlet Salvias, including S. splendens, had been pre- 
viously indicated as ornithophilous by Delpino. As I stated at 
that time, S. splendens is only one of a considerable number of 
tropical American species perfectly adapted to crossing by Trochi- 
lidae. Two such species are S. gesneriaefolia, very similar to S. 
fulgens, and S. Heerii. 
Salvia gesneriaefolia has a corolla of about the same length as 
that of S. splendens, but deeper and with the lower lip unreduced, 
fig. 27. Its color is if possible more brilliant. The anthers are 
of a somewhat similar form, with the fertile cell included, the 
connate sterile ends, however, not going-so far back in the cor- 
olla. The style is barely exserted, and the stigma apparently 
receptive when the flower expands. Nectar is secreted in great 
abundance by the large gland beneath the ovary. Small creeping 
insects are excluded by the glandular hairs of calyx and corolla ; 
and the protruding portion of the style is covered by spreading 
red hairs, fig. 29, whose function is probably that of rendering 
the flowers more showy, and at the same time preventing creeping 
insects, which might have succeeded in reaching the end of the 
corolla, from forcing an entrance between it and the style. 
Halictus and other small pollen hunters which easily reach the 
end of the flower by flight may be likewise prevented by these 
hairs from reaching the anthers. 
Bees stand little chance of getting the nectar, except by per- 
forating the corolla. Lepidoptera might readily obtain it but for a 
special provision apparently designed to exclude them as well as 
any small insects which might have surmounted the barrier of 
pubescence, namely, the complete obstruction of the mouth of 
the corolla by the dilated lower ends of the connectives. These 
do not merely touch the bottom of the corolla, but the latter 
