5 | 
VERONICA. 71 
veneral appearance that botanists have given them signi: 
ficant names—e.g., V. salicifolia (willow-leaved), V. ligustrifo- 
lia (privet-leaved), V. bu«ifolia (box-leaved), commonly called 
New Zealand box, V. lycopodioides (like club-moss), V. cupres- 
soides (like cypress), and many others. In these the leaves 
are all opposite, and in some cases (e.g., V. tetrasticha) so 
closely packed as to make the branches with their leaves 
appear like pieces of carved wood. The flowers are most 
commonly arranged in more or less dense racemes. The 
calyx is 4-partite, its divisions being separated nearly to the 
base. ‘The open corolla is somewhat unequally 4-lobed, and 
is only imperfectly 2-lipped. Only 2 stamens are present, no 
more ever being developed. ‘The 2-celled ovary ripens into a 
capsule, which differs a good deal in shape in the different 
species, but usually dehisces septicidally. | 
Fig. 181. Dehiscing cap- 
Fig. 180. Corolla of Veronica sule of Veronica traverstt 
carnosula (mag.). (mag.). 
A great number of familiar plants belong to this type, in which, with 
considerable variation of detail, the general features are very persistent. 
The following are among the commonest :— 
Calceolaria, of which one New Zealand species—C. sinclairii—is to 
be found in cultivation—remarkable for its inflated corolla-lips. Only 2 
stamens are present. 
Pentstemon, remarkable for the occurrence of a fifth modified stamen, 
which, however, has no anther-lobes. Presumably the ancestral forms 
-from which all the plants of this type are descended were furnished with 
five stamens ; in most cases ove, but in others three, of these have ceased 
to be developed. 
Mimalus.—Two indigenous species, M. radicans and M. repens, are 
to be found. In gardens, Musk (M. moschatus) and various hybrids of 
M. lutews, &c., are common, All are characterized by having a stigma 
composed of two plates or 
lamella, the lower of which 
ig irritable. If it be rubbed 
with a clean feather or brush 
if closes up, but reopens again 
after an interval of less than 
an hour. But if a little pollen Hig. 182. Style and 
from another flower be brushed open stigma of Mi- Fig. 133. Same, 
on to it it closes up and does mulus radicans. closed. 
not reopen. It is easy to see 
that only an insect entering the flower with pollen on its head can 
leave this on the lower stigmatic lobe; one withdrawing its head will 
only brush the under-side, not the stigmatic side, of the lobe. In this 
way fertilisation can only be brought about by pollen from another flower. 
