22 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
LJanuary, 
-vation the plant produced smaller tubers than 
it did when wild. Some writers describe them 
as growing to the “ size of an egg; ” if a hen’s 
egg is intended, we must say that, though we 
have dug up a good many, we never saw one 
larger than, if- so large as, a pigeon’s egg. 
The name “ Ground-nut ” is an unfortunate 
■one, as there is nothing nut-like about the 
plant. The botanical name, Apios, from the 
Greek word for pear, referring to the some¬ 
what pear-shaped tubers, is a pleasant-sound¬ 
ing one, and easy to recollect, and it is in every 
respect preferable to “ Ground-nut,” which is 
often applied to pea-nut, as well as to some 
other plants. The early botanists placed 
this and the Wistaria in the genus Glycine, 
which is now restricted to a few tropical bean¬ 
like plants. There are two other species of 
Apios besides A. tuberosa, one growing in China, 
and the other, which is said to have handsome 
red flowers, in the Himalaya mountains. 
The Racemose Fuchsia. 
The varieties of Fuchsia are very numerous, 
and each year adds its novelties to the list. 
While a few of those in cultivation preserve 
the original form of the species, the majority, 
and those among the most beautiful, are pro¬ 
duced by hydridizing and crossing. There has 
been such a commingling of blood, as breeders 
say, that it is impossible to trace some of our 
most prized varieties to their parent species. 
While we admire these productions of the 
florist’s skill, we also like to see the unaltered 
species in cultivation, and are glad that another 
—Fuchsia racemosa —has been recently added 
to our collections. This species is far from be¬ 
ing a new one, as it was described nearly a 
hundred years ago, but if it ever was in culti¬ 
vation, it has long been lost, and now has all 
the interest of a new discovery. The plant has a 
spreading habit, throwing up numerous suckers 
from the root, and thus forming large clumps, 
from one to two feet high. The engraving of 
the upper portion of a stem gives the form of 
the leaves and flowers of the natural size. The 
flowers, which are clustered at the top of the 
stem in a raceme, are very narrow in proportion 
to their length ; the petals, which in most other 
species are so conspicuous, are in this very 
nearly of the same size with the divisions of 
the calyx, and both are very nearly of the same 
color, which is a very bright scarlet, and ex¬ 
ceedingly showy. The plant was collected 
several years ago by Thomas Hogg, Esq., in 
the mountains of St. Domingo, where Father 
Plumier originally discovered it nearly two 
centuries before, and described it in 1703, it be¬ 
ing the first Fuchsia ever described, and the 
one upon which the genus was founded. It 
was exhibited at one of the exhibitions of the 
Hew York Horticultural Society, where it was 
examined with much interest by the florists 
present, who looked upon it as a novelty of 
great promise. The stock of the plant passed 
into the hands of Mr. Peter Henderson, who 
will no doubt offer it for sale in due time. 
Coming from the high mountains of San 
Domingo, it may prove much better suited to 
bedding purposes, and endure our hot summers 
much better than those which are descended 
from natives of the warm and moist forests of 
Mexico and South America. We have not had 
an opportunity to carefully examine this plant 
in bloom, but have no doubt that Mr. Hogg 
has manifested his usual accuracy in referring 
it to Fuchsia racemosa of Lamarck. 
How Flowers are Fertilized. 
BY PROY. ASA GRAY. 
ARTICLE IX.—GROUND-NUT OR APIOS. 
Our long story about Beans and their relatives 
was not quite finished in the October number. 
There is a wild Bean worth noticing for the curious 
difference between its arrangement for fertilization, 
and that of the common Bean-flower. I hardly 
know which is the more curious ; but the one now 
to be described has the greater novelty. Indeed, I 
had the pleasure of finding it out only a year ago 
last summer. The plant in question abounds in low 
grounds, especially along streams, and climbs by 
twining up the stems of herbs and over bushes, 
and is described by the Editors on another page. 
It is with the flowers only that we have now to 
do. They are like those of Beans in form and ar¬ 
rangement, with a little difference. The wing-petals 
stand forward, and make the same kind of landing 
place. But the weight of a bee 
or other insect alighting on them 
has no such effect as upon the 
Bean-flower, indeed does not 
alter the position of the stamens 
and pistil at all. The part of the 
flowers which encloses these (the 
keel, so called), is curved, not into 
a coil, as in beans, but into the 
shape of a sickle or semicircle. Pig. 1 . 
The tip of this keel rests firmly Flower unvisited. 
in a small notch or indentation at 
the middle of the top of the standard, the large and 
hollowed petal—in shape not unlike a ladies’ bon¬ 
net of the olden time, when bonnets were ample— 
which forms the whole back-side of the flower. The 
keel remains fixed in this way, if the flower is let 
alone, spanning across the middle of the deep cav¬ 
ity, which opens to the bottom of the flower. 
Figure 3 represents a flower-bud, cut through 
lengthwise, so as to show the pistil within, and 
some of the stamens. The way in which the end 
of the keel rests in the notch or 
pocket, is best seen in figure 4, 
which, on a larger scale than 
figure 1, represents a flower, with 
the part of the standard coming 
towards the eye, cut away, to 
give a clear view. The tip of the 
keel is not dislodged from its 
Pig. 2. — Flower socket by any moderate jar, nor 
vehicle has been visit- by pressing from the outside. But 
ed by a bee, and when, in any fresh flower,we raise 
the keel sprung, the tip by a lift with the point of 
a pencil from underneath, the keel promptly curves 
more, and takes the shape and position shown in 
figure 2, at the same time splitting from the apex 
down the inner edge, and protruding the tip of the 
style, and, in a less degree, the opening and pollen¬ 
laden anthers. 
Figure 5 represents, in outline or diagram, the 
change which takes place when the tip ofithe keel 
is dislodged from the socket. The dotfld lines 
show the position of the trap—as we may call it— 
when set; the strong curvature shows it sprung. 
How this contrivance subserves cross-fertiliza¬ 
tion, it is easy to see. I 
am confident that the 
blossoms are seldom, if 
ever, .self - fertilized. 
The anthers from the 
first lie a little behind 
the stigma, which is 
small, and at the very 
tip of the naked style. 
Upon opening several 
flowers of various ages, 
even when the pollen lay 
loose in and around the 
bursting anthers, none 
was found upon the stig¬ 
ma. At first the stigma 
is covered with a pulpy 
secretion ; at last, when the stigma developes fully, 
and the center is free from this pulpy matter, this 
forms a soft ring around its base, over or through 
which no pollen passes. Nor is it likely that any 
Fig. Section of flower- 
bud, enlarged. 
pollen reaches the stigma when this and the anthers 
protrude upon liberation from their confinement. 
This liberation, I am convinced, ordinarily takes 
place only upon the visit of a bee, or some such in¬ 
sect, which entering, at least partially, into the 
open cavity of the blossom either side of the keel 
presses the latter upward from beneath. The strong 
tendency to further curvature of the whole keel, 
and especially of the pistil, which before simply 
pressed the tip into its socket, and so held all fast, 
now takes effect, and it coils in the way shown in 
the figures ; during which the stigma, and then the 
anthers are likely 
to be brought into 
contact with some 
part of the in¬ 
sect’s body; and 
so, when flower \ 
after flower is vis¬ 
ited, cross-ferti¬ 
lization must 
needs be effected. 
Equally, too, when 
a bee visits a blos¬ 
som, which has 
been let loose, if „. 
it enters upon the * 
• -j , F , P a? * °f standard cut aivay, showinq 
side towards m ked in ^ and t £ % 
which the style which the tip of the keel is held fast. 
swerves (as it 
always at length, if not immediately, does, either 
to right or left), the stigma will first be touched, 
probably by a pollen-dusted portion of the insect’s 
body, and then the anthers will give a new supply 
of pollen for the next blossom ; and so on. To un¬ 
derstand this well, compare the account and the 
figures with those of the common Bean, in the Oc¬ 
tober number, and admire the wonderful contriv¬ 
ance, by which the same kind of flower is modified 
in the two cases, so as to produce the same result 
in two different ways. Both are equally good for 
cross-fertilization, receive full explanation upon 
that supposition, and are unintelligible without it. 
I have two reasons for affirming that the flowers 
of Ground-nut do not self-fertiiize. First, as here 
shown, the structure seems to forbid it. Second, 
growing here in the 
Botanic Garden, and 
blossoming profuse¬ 
ly, not a pod has been 
seen for the last 
two years; and in 
the neighboring low 
grounds, where it 
abounds, fruit is rare. 
It must be otherwise 
in some places or 
some seasons, for the 
herbarium contains 
copiously fruited spe¬ 
cimens. The blos¬ 
soms are dull in color; 
but their delicious 
Fig. 5. — Diagram, showing 
same, with the keel spnrng, and 
stigma and style protruding. 
fragrance must appeal to the acute senses of bees. 
Here, in fact, as in most Orchids, the arrangement 
for cross-fertilization is so perfect and special, that, 
if not responded to, reproduction by seed fails. 
Now in this respect it differs Horn peas, clover, and 
the like, which can and do self-fertilize more or 
less, and so make sure of some seed. Even the 
bean-flower secures a margin for self-fertilization 
when it can no better be. When we depress the 
wing-petals, and bring out the stigma and the 
brush behind it, (see October number), any pollen 
which does not adhere to the brush is pushed for¬ 
ward so far that, when the style retracts, some of 
it reaches the stigma. In an early article upon the 
subject, (as far .back as 1857), to which my atten¬ 
tion has just been recalled, Mr. Darwin says that he 
fertilized some bean-flowers tolerably well, while 
protected from bees, by pressing down the wings 
so as to effect this movement. 
Facts of this kind, and the setting of some seed 
when blossoms are covered, have been appealed to 
as evidence that such contrivances as we have been 
describing are merely something odd, perhaps un¬ 
accountable, of no material importance to the race, 
possibly even a disadvantage. But a little reflec- 
