FLORAL DEMONSTRATION, 
53 
FLORAL DEMONSTRATION. 
By the Rev. Professor George Henslow, M.A., F.R.H.S., 
V.M.H., &c. 
[Given March 8, 1898.] 
Professor Henslow commenced by alluding to a plant of 
Iris persica and one of Cyclamen Coum , interesting historically 
as being the first and fourth plant respectively illustrated in 
Curtis’ “Botanical Magazine,” vol. i. They have thus been in 
cultivation for upwards of a century, but show little if any 
improvement. 
Specimens of Sarracenia in blossom afforded an opportunity 
of describing the method of catching insects adopted by this 
genus, which decay within the trumpet-shaped leaves through 
bacteria, and afford some nourishment, by absorption, to the 
host plant; but under cultivation the flies are often so numerous 
as to destroy the pitchers themselves, the only preventive being 
apparently the plugging the mouths with cotton wool. Allusion 
was made to the fact that in America a certain moth drops its 
eggs into the decaying debris, when birds subsequently slit open 
the tubes and extract the grubs. Mr. Henslow had even found 
the decaying mass of insects full of the grubs of the blow-fly. 
The flower was described and the movements of the shield-like 
stigma, first noticed by Mr. W. G. Smith, to allow an insect to 
enter beneath it and then escape with pollen, when the stigma 
became depressed again. 
Erica and Epacris supplied an illustration of representative 
plants. Though much alike, but of different orders, the former 
is from the Cape, the latter from Australia. The interpretation 
of the similarity is that they both grow under similar climatal 
conditions, the plants having “responded” to these, and con¬ 
sequently assumed a like physiognomy. 
Bryophylluvi calycinum, from Madeira, &c., illustrated a 
peculiar method of vegetative propagation, inasmuch as the 
leaflets fall off before decaying and strike root, then produce 
buds at the notches on the margin. Professor Henslow pointed 
out the analogy between this and a carpellary leaf with ovules, as 
exemplified in a Pea pod. 
