Ornithophilous Flowers in South Africa. 
BY 
G. F. SCOTT-ELLIOT, M.A. Cantab., B.Sc. Edin. 
With Plate XV. 
HE Cinnyridae play a very important part in the fertil- 
JL isation of some of the Cape flowers. There has been 
very little published on this point 1 , and therefore the follow- 
ing observations on flowers belonging to some thirteen natural 
orders may be of interest, especially as probably more than 
a hundred species are largely fertilised by these birds. It is 
noticeable that the orders are perhaps as different as they 
possibly could be. 
Meljanthus Major, L. (Figs. 1-3). 
The flowers are exceedingly conspicuous. The peduncle is 
four or five feet high, and thickly covered for the last eighteen 
inches by the dark reddish-purple flowers. 
The sepals are petaloid and very dissimilar ; the superior 
pair (about an inch long), being slightly curled forwards, pro- 
tect the essential organs from rain 2 ; the lateral sepals are 
somewhat shorter, and prevent access to the flower from the 
side ; the lowest sepal 3 is hollowed out into a short blunt 
1 Dr. Trimen. Lecture delivered before the Cape of Good Hope Society. 
2 They also overlap behind one another. 
3 The flowers are reversed by the twisting of the pedicel. 
[ Annals of Botany, Vol. IV. No. XIV. May 1890. ] 
