360 Scott Elliot —On the Fertilisation of South 
angular and very ciliate at the edges. Self-fertilisation is 
possible, however, as the five stigmatic branches eventually 
coil over so much that if any pollen is left on the style they 
must come in contact with it. Visitors : — Lepidoptera : Erebia 
cassius sucking. Ants also visit the flowers. 
Scaevola Thunbergii, E . Z. 
The corolla has somewhat the appearance of that of 
a Lobelia . The tube is about 7 inches long, and covered 
internally with long hairs which are all directed backward ; 
it is slit along the upper surface (just as in Lobelia) and 
through the slit projects the style which, however, is bent 
forwards and downwards in its upper portion. The stamens 
dehisce some time before the flower opens. The style in this 
condition of the flower is shorter than the stamens, and ter- 
minates in a membranous cup about 1 1 lines in diameter and 
a line deep. The anthers are bent inwards over the edge of 
this cup, and their pollen falls into its cavity (at the bottom 
of which is the quite undeveloped stigma) ; after dehiscence, 
however, the style grows past the anthers, and the edges of 
the indusium are flattened together in such a way that the 
entrance to the indusial cup is now a narrow transverse (i. e. 
horizontal) slit. The way in which insect-fertilisation is 
effected can be clearly seen by gently pushing one’s finger 
under the style into the corolla-tube ; while pushing inwards 
the style simply becomes more and more curved back, but on 
gently drawing the finger back a ribbon-like mass of pollen is 
left on the finger. This is because the upper margin of the 
slit is longer than the lower, and is pressed against it when it 
is being pushed inwards. If any pollen is left in the cup, it is 
subsequently forced out by the developing stigma which when 
fully ripe separates the edges of the slit, and forms a broad 
surface (indistinctly bi-lobed), ij line long and a line broad. 
The flower is thus protandrous, and exhibits a strong affinity 
with Lobelia ; the indusium is exactly comparable to the circle 
of hairs in Lobelia , and as Urban (Muller, No. 751) states that 
its microscopical structure looks very much like a circle of 
