August 27, 1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
177 
perianth. The other three stamens follow the next day. Certainly on 
-one plant are flowers on which all the stamens are in advance of the 
pistils, and are very vigorous, while on other p’ants the pistil is in 
•advance and comparatively strong, differences which in other species 
•are associated with fertility or infertility, or, as we say, render the 
plants practically dioecious. 
These conclusions are reached in face of the fact that they render the 
problem of fertilisation still more difficult of solution. Although the dry 
pollen would indicate an anemophilous species, the manner in which 
the spathe is coiled around the spadix must render it next to impossible 
for the wind to be a material agent in carrying pollen to separate plants. 
As for insects, though I have seen a few flies on exceptionally warm 
•spring days among the flowers, and other observers have noted similar 
insect visitors, these visits can be far from as general as we must demand 
before we can assign them any important part in a system of cross- 
fertilisation. On the whole of the afternoon of February 22nd, though 
they were the special object of the afternoon’s search, the thermometer 
indicating 52° Fahr , no winged insect of any kind was seen. I cannot 
think that either insects or the wind have any material agency in 
fertilising these flowers. As, however, I know that some plants in the 
vicinity of the examination bear an abundance of seed the probability 
is that some individuals have flowers in which perfect hermaphroditism 
(prevails, and that these are self-fertilising. 
The great variation in the colour and form of the spathes and 
•spadices of this plant has been often noticed. It is worthy of remark, 
however, that through all the changes, the striped and splashed 
•character of the tints remains. The spathe muy be either almost 
wholly yellowish-green, or purple, there will generally be •trim of one 
or the other colour sp'ashed over the surface. In one case a flower was 
found with a double spathe, as is occasionally seen in the common 
-.garden Calla, Richardia africana. The explanation given in the latter 
case is that the flower stem is but a consolidated mass of leafstalks, in 
which the blades of all but the white spathe have been suppressed. 
There is no reason, therefore, why these suppressed blades shou’d not 
occasionally appear. The case of Symplocarpus shows the inflorescence 
to be also formed by the consolidation of several leaves, of wdiich a 
second blade has been advanced though usually suppressed. This is the 
.first case that I have heard of, but there is no reason why they should 
■not be oftener found if looked for. 
It may not be out of place to repeat what I have already noted in 
•the chapter above cited, that the flowers are odourless, the foetid smell 
being given off only when the leaf or stem is broken. These fac's were 
again confirmed on this occasion, showing the speculations that have 
been offered concerning the “ carrion like odour ” of the flowers as an 
attraction to carrion flies, to be, like many similar speculations, figments 
«f overwrought enthusiasm. 
Portulaca pilosa, L .—This is everywhere classed as an annual 
except by De Candolle (*• Prodromus” 3, p. 354) where it is classed as 
either annual or biennial. Among a collection of dried specimens 
brought by my wife from Punto Gorda, Florida, in the winter of 1887, 
I found a specimen with life and planted it in a flower pot, where it has 
continued to grow and flower annually. Now four years old, it seems 
likely to live for an indefinite period. Its flowers open only, according 
to all authors before me, under bright sunshine, and then merely for a 
very brief period. De Candolle says it opens only between 10 and 12, 
Don, however, (Ed. of Miller, vol. iii, p. 74), notes that this is only true 
of days when the sun is out. Englemann (“ Plantae Lindheimerianae,” 
p. 155) observes that in bright sunshine it opens from 9 to 11 or 12, 
and at the same time notes that the neighbouring P. Gilliesi, Hook., 
originally from Chili, common in cultivation, opens from 8 or 9, to 2 or 
3 p.m. in sunshine. My plant has never been set in bright sunshine, 
and thus the flowers which are produced abundantly and seed freely, 
have never openi d. They must of course, be arranged for self-pollina¬ 
tion, or they could not seed so perfectly. Opening only in bright 
sunshine in their country, and no one flower opening twice, a large 
number of those growing in their natural places must of necesshy also 
be close-fertilised. 
The inquiry which these facts suggest is whether the chance for 
crois-fertilisation could have been much of an object in nature in the 
arrangement for the opening of the flowers. It is a well-known fact, 
that of the immense number of seeds produced by any one plant of any 
kind, but a very small number escape the chapter of accidents and re¬ 
produce a plant. If cross-fertilisation were so desirable, it would seem 
that the flowers should have a better chance for effecting it than 
the brief period of daily opening, and limited, at this, to the few 
moments bright sunshine affords. As the facts stand, the greater 
proportion of seeds in this species are the product of close and not 
cross fertilisation. 
To this fact we have to add that the expanding flowers do not seem 
to my mind to favour cross-pollination. The seed is mo3t probably 
from close-fertilisation in the expanded as well as in those which seed 
without expanding. I placed on record, (“ Gardener’s and Landsteward’s 
Journal,” 1845), that the stamens of Portulaca grandiflora—a mere form 
probably of P. Gilliesi—were irritable, and in 1878 (Proceedings of Ac. 
Nat. Sciences, 1878, p. 332) that the stamens of the common Purs’ane, 
are irritable also. Close observations have frequently been made on 
these flowers, because of irritability of a precisely similar sharacter in 
-Opuntia and other Cactacse. But in none of these observations has 
there been any suggestion of design or adaptation to cross-pollination 
by i isect or other agency. 
The leading object of this paper is aot however, to show the relation 
which the behaviour of these flowers bears to speculations on cross¬ 
fertilisation, but to point out in how r many particulars the character of 
some Portulacacene resembles some Cactace®. A large number of the 
latter open only for a single day, and for a few hours, under sunshine, 
during that day. In my experience a large number never expani their 
petals, and the sexual organs are well protected from wind and fron 
insects, but seed just as well. The bulk of the seeds certainly, if not 
the whole probably, are the result of clcse-p fl'ination. Again we have 
the resemblance in the irritable seamens, in the succulence, and many 
other characters. It is fair to assume that bo'h families have had a 
close derivation, and if we would search for the object of Nature in so 
limiting the duration and perioi of opening and yet with a resulting 
productiveness, we should probably have to look back in the past to 
some necessity common to both families, and which does not exist at 
the present time. 
Cuphea Zimpani. —Observing that with scarcely an exception the 
flowers of the annual species of Cuphea were fertile, I was led to look 
for the evidence of self-fertility in C. Zimpani in bloom in my garden, 
and found that it was so arrange! that the reception of any po’len but 
its own was evidently impossible. An examination of the flower soon 
after the expansion of the limb would lead to the inference that it was 
arranged for cross-pollination. The two bearded stamens are abundantly 
polliniferous, while it is evident by the thick bearded mass below that 
the communication between stamen and pistil is completely cit off 
Between the two large upper petals, however, the calvx forms a sort of 
sheath, down which an insect in search of honey, and not gifted with 
the tube-splitting habits of the humble bee, would no doubt thrust its 
proboscis. It would be natural to suppo-re an insect thus examining a 
flower would carry pollen to the next. But an examination of this 
sheath will show that the stigmt cannot be reached in this way. Tnat 
and the four other anthers remain coiled away in a nest of downy hair, 
which is at once the cradle and the grave of both. A more perfect 
adaptation for self-fertilisation is seldom seen. 
Daphne Cneorum. —Though I have seen this under cultivation for 
half a century, I have never known it to produce a seed. The flowers 
seem well arranged for self-pollination. The mou'h of the tube is 
effectually closed b 7 four anthers abundantly polliniferous, and the 
next day the second series of four below, also burst their sacs. The 
exposure of pollen is simultaneous with the expansion of the limb, and 
it seems next to impossible that foreign pollen should reach the stigma. 
The short style and stigma at the base of the tube seem perfect, but I 
have never been able to detect any pollen on the stigma. It is highly 
gelatinous and does not separate readily fron the antber-cell. It looks 
as if it might be necessary for an insect to carry the pollen to the stigma, 
aidiDg in self-pollination as in Yucca and other plants. The tube is to > 
long for the honey bee, and the humble bee slits the tube even before 
the°flower opens, thus wholly avoiding contact with the stamens. It 
may be that in its native places self-pollination is aided by long-tongued 
lepidoptera, but this suggestion places the plant at a disadvantage in 
the “ struggle for life” as it cannot travel as a se f-fertiliser does. 
“ He that fights, and runs away, 
Hay live to fight another day,” 
does not apply to a plant, which cannot run. 
Lopezia coronata. —That Lopezia coronata, Andrews, a Mexican 
Onagraceae common in cultivation, is a se f fertiliser, I am confilent, 
from the fact that every flower is fertile, and this is equally as true of 
plants growing in greenhouses where insects and currents of air are 
wholly excluded, as when growing in the open air. But I have been 
baffled in endeavouring to ascertaiu how the flower’s own pollen, or the 
pollen of a neighbouring flower, which, as is well shown by Mr. Darwin, 
is practically the same thing, reaches the stigma. To one who had not 
been assured of self-fertilisation from the actual facts, the flowers would 
seem as psrfectly arranged for crors-pollination as it is possible to be. 
In the early stages of the bud, before amhesis the large single anther 
is iutrorse. It is sheathed by the blade of the petaloid stamen, and its 
own filament sheaths the style. At an'hesis the connective twists, and 
the anther turns its back on the s*yle. The auther cells burst at once, 
and some of the pollen undoubted y falls on the apex of the style. 
The stamen soon recurves, until the face of the anther rests upon one 
of the sepals. At this time, however, the first day of opeoiDg, tne apex 
can scarcely be called a stigma, for it is not till the second day that the 
globular, capitate, and capillate head, properly deserving of the name 
of stigma, is developed. Looking at toe relative positions of stamen 
and stigma at th's perioi, and when the latter might be regirded as in 
receptive Cjndition, one might readily conclude it impossible that tte 
flower could be individually self-p ollinate 1. Tne next day the fading 
sepals and peta’s coil upwards an i enfold the sty e an i stigma. Whether 
the pol'en which falls on the immature apex of the sty e at anthes’8 
remains there till the stigma matures, or whether the pollen wired hos 
been scattered over tV petals and sepals is brought up when the far.iog 
petals incurve, may well be a question. Possibly, as before no ed, it 
falls from the flower above. 
Certainly pollination i 9 not effected by insect agency, and the chid 
point of this chapter is to show how error may creep in by mere 
speculations on the arrangement of the parts. Here is a case where one 
might well believe the arrangements we-e n : cely adapted to pollination 
by insect agency, when in fact the plant in some way not ceir. 
but certainly, is self-fertile.— Thomas Meehan ( in Proceeding* of 
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia'). 
