2 jo Scott-Elliot. — Ornithophilous Flowers 
Cape Town. The bird always seizes the branch below the 
flowers, and exhausts one branch before going to another. It 
is an important article of diet to the birds, as it blooms prac- 
tically all the year. 
Probably the whole Gigandra section of Erica is ornithophilous except 
E. penicillata. 
Erica purpurea, Andr. 
The flowers are purplish red, and are arranged almost hori- 
zontally. The corolla tube is much curved upwards, and about 
an inch long ; it is also very viscid externally, thus keeping off 
insects. The style projects 2-3 lines from the throat of the 
corolla, while the laterally placed stamens are included in its 
tube. 
The nectary consists of small projections from the base of 
the ovary, placed between the stamens. 
I have often seen the flowers visited by Nectarinia chctlybea 
at Wynberg Butts and Muizenberg. Owing to the upward 
curvature the bird has to seize the branch above the flowers 
and suck them head downwards. This is an advantage for 
the flower, as self-fertilisation is quite impossible, while in 
E. Plukenetii it must occasionally happen. 
Probably the whole Pleurocallis section is ornithophilous. All the large 
flowered Evanthes are almost certainly so. 
The section Bactridium is particularly adapted to bird-fertilisation ; the rare 
E . fascicularis (Fig. 9), for instance, which grows on the summits of barren rocky 
hills near Houwhoek. The stems are three or four feet high without branches, 
and crowned by a thick whorl of scarlet flowers about sixteen lines long. I saw 
many birds near them, but had no time to watch them at work. 
TECOMA CAPENSIS, Lind. 
The stigma stands in front of the stamens with the lips 
horizontal, so that self-fertilisation is impossible. 
I have seen this visited by Nectarinia afra in the Fish 
River Bush. It is also visited by Zosterops virens {fide W. C. 
Scully) and C. amethystina. Near East London I found 
numerous bees visiting the flowers. Mr. M. S. Evans has 
already pointed this out as an ornithophilous flower (Nature, 
vol. xviii. p. 543). 
