August 26, 1880. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER . 193 
and finer than those grown in the hottest houses. The next and 
last is the East Indian house, and is only separated from the 
above house by a glass partition. The first plant that attracted 
attention was Hoya imperialis in flower, a plant seldom seen in 
private places. The house contained some good Vandas ; a piece of 
V. tricolor was in flower, also Saccolabium ampullaceum. Aerides 
was represented by good plants, and Cypripediums niveum and 
Hookerm were in bloom. Sonerilas and other dwarf-growing 
plants of a similar nature were growing amongst the moss with 
the Vandas, Aerides, See., w’hich looked neat and effective. 
The grounds were in good order, and the flower garden and 
shrubbery borders gay with spring-flowering plants. Mr. Wilson 
is a great Orchid enthusiast and lover of horticulture." Mr. Glover, 
like his employer is equally so, and a most successful cultivator. 
—¥m, Bardney. 
FLORAL DEFENCES. 
{Concluded from page 161.) 
Path-pointers .—Sometimes Nature fulfils the old adage of killing 
two birds with one stone, and uses her floral palisades as path- 
pointers to direct the welcome visitor to the nectar. One of the 
most exquisite examples of a structure serving such a double purpose 
may be found in the Grass of Parnassus. Pive of the ten stamens 
are transformed in such a way that their broad bases bear rows of 
finger-like organs, each with a little yellow knob at the tip. The 
knobs are not glandular, at all events they do not form a sticky 
secretion. The nectar is found at the base of the stamens on the 
inside next the pistil. 
Botanists have been very much puzzled what to make of these 
gold-tipped claws. They have been called staminodes, imperfect 
stamens, scales, nectaries. 
In the_ charming blossom known as Passion-flowers protection is 
afforded in quite a different manner. A floral appendage, answering 
to the yellow centre in the Polyanthus Narcissus and called the 
corona, is divided into a double or a triple fringe, forming a diadem 
around the anthers and the curiously shaped pistil. No creeping 
thing can pass through such a zone, the loveliness of which seems as 
if designed to attract a humming-bird or a butterfly. 
It is sad that a friendly insect should ever have recourse to partak¬ 
ing surreptitiously of hospitality which would willingly he accorded 
if sought in a friendly way. But truth requires the admission that 
certain bees, otherwise accustomed to conduct themselves with pro¬ 
priety, are in the habit of setting all order and etiquette at defiance 
by biting through the tubes of flowers just above the nectary, thus 
plundering the blossom of its sweets without coming into contact 
with the stamens or the style. 
Against such a burglarious entrance certain flowers are defended 
by a calyx resembling an inflated bladder, in the centre of which 
rises the tube of the flower. The bee may bite through the calyx but 
cannot reach the nectar, and it is probable that flowers thus defended 
are very rarely attacked. The distended calyx also serves for the 
distribution of the seeds by the wind. 
There are many flowers unprovided with any of the foregoing appli¬ 
ances. or means of defence which we have been considering. We speak 
of animal sagacity, and there is something which may be called floral 
sagacity in the way by which one unprotected flower is secured from 
molestation. It is one of the Touch-me-nots, 
common in the forests of Germany. The 
flowers are full of nectar and are attractive 
to bees, which are welcome visitors ; but the 
mode in which ants and other creeping things 
are kept away is singular. In the place of 
stipules at the bases of the leafstalks on the 
stem, the plant develops small saucer-like re¬ 
ceptacles which are kept full of honey. Dr. 
Kernel’ writes—“ Any insects that creep along 
the stem must, if they would get at the flower, 
of necessity pass over this deposit of honey ; 
thus what they would have sought, and more¬ 
over would have found in the flower, is al¬ 
ready offered them below in rich abundance. 
The creeping insects are not fastidious. Nec¬ 
tar in one place is the same to them as nectar 
in another. They are content with that which 
is first offered, and so do not trouble them¬ 
selves to climb further up to the flowers.” 
Dr. Kernel - has seen three ants feeding to¬ 
gether at the honey on the stem, but though 
he has examined hundreds of plants, he has 
never seen a single ant reach the blossom. 
In a short notice of Flowers and their Un¬ 
bidden Guests, which I wrote for one of the 
Liverpool papers, and which it is possible 
that some of you may have seen, I mentioned 
that towards the close of Dr. Kerner’s volume 
occurred two charming plant stories like drops of honey at the 
bottom of a flower. The substance of one of them will serve for 
our last illustration. It may be called the life-history not of a plant 
but of a single blossom, a blossom of the Nodding Catchfly, which, 
Fig. 44. 
Stem and Honey-saucer 
of the Touch-me-not. 
however, does not seem to be the Silene nutans of the English 
Flora. 
Night-flowering plants, such as the Evening Primrose, last but a 
short time in flower, usually one night only. A single blossom of 
the Nodding Catchfly, however, remains three nights and two days 
in perfection, and observes, in the opening and closing of the different 
parts of the flower, an order more like the result of intelligence than 
of mere. vegetable growth. On the first evening the flower expands 
about eight o’clock, and remains open far on into the night. Of its 
ten stamens five push themselves boldly in advance of the petals, 
which fall back upon the calyx, displaying the pure white of their 
upper surfaces. At the same time the anthers open and are richly 
covered with fresh pollen. The plant now sheds a strong perfume 
attractive to night-flying insects, which, for some unknown reason, 
alone are acceptable to the Nodding Catchfly. The following morn¬ 
ing the five anthers droop, wither, and finally fall off. The petals 
roll themselves up so as to exhibit only their dull green under¬ 
surfaces, and all emission of perfume ceases. There is now nothing 
to attract day-flying insects, and the flower is well protected from 
the visits of ants and other creeping things by viscid hairs on its 
stem as represented below. 
From its old and wrinkled appearance one might think that the 
flower had withered and shrivelled up. Not so : at the approach of 
night the wrinkles disappear ; the petals show their brilliant white 
surfaces ; again the sweet perfume is spread on the night breeze, 
and the remaining five anthers come forth fully opened out and 
laden with fresh pollen. On the second day a similar withering 
and shrinking of the flower occurs, the anthers of the past night fall 
away, and no perfume attracts a butterfly or a bee. The floral dis- 
Srd night. 
Changes observed in a Single Blossom of the Nodding Catciiflt. 
Fig. 45. 
guise, for such it really is, continues till the third night, when again 
the petals expand as fresh as ever, and the perfume flows out freely, 
this time in favour of the silky pistils, the styles and stigmata of 
which stand out, as the anthers did before, and are now ready to he 
fertilised by pollen from flowers in their first or second night’s 
condition. 
Marvellous ! Why should such an inconspicuous flower have so 
singular a history ? Why should it prefer night-flying insects, and 
be so excessively coy by day ? Why should it put forth five anthers 
only on the first night, and the rest on the second night ? Such 
questions might be multiplied, and to all of them there can be hut 
one ultimate answer : but in subordination to that answer, and for 
instruction as to the means whereby so wondrous a life history has 
been brought to pass, they all point to a theory of development 
which has been charged with robbing our love for flowers of all 
its poetry and of half its capacity for affording delight. Surely it 
has opened for us new resources within the reach of every willing 
observer. 
The life history of our most common British plants has hitherto 
been very insufficiently traced, and may yet yield rewards far higher 
than the discovery of new species. One word of caution is needed : 
we must not suppose that now we have found a way to the bottom 
of Nature’s secrets. A distended calyx may not always be meant for 
a defence against biting bees. Many flowers seem not disposed for 
cross-fertilisation, but the contrary, and then, of course, they require 
no defences ; nevertheless they seem to have them : so there is some¬ 
thing more to be found out. 
I cannot claim much originality in what I have stated. I have 
mostly described what others have seen ; but the line is a promising 
one, and should we be so far favoured as to meet again in the fields, 
under sunny skies, I anticipate much pleasure in pursuing the subject 
with you in the happiest possible way—with the fresh flowers in our 
hands—all the apparatus requisite being simply a magnifying glass 
and a pin. 
Large Potatoes, “ Flounders.”— One of the largest and 
most generally grown early Potatoes in Ireland is, perhaps, the 
