Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
Later still in summer we find a rose in the same surprising case, while not far off is a columbine bearing pollen on its spurs instead of its anthers. What family tie is betrayed in all this?
Now, when the bee shakes the end of the stigma, it parts the ring of anthers, and the fine dust falls through upon the insect. Let us see for a moment how wonderfully this flower is arranged to bring about the carrying of the pollen, as Sprengel pointed out years ago.
Leaves alternate, with very short petioles, at the base of which is a pair of short spines, and a small tuft of wool in the axil; blade 3 in. long by 2 in. broad, soft, fleshy, shining green. Flowers semi-transparent, white, in terminal panicles; sepals and petals ¾ in. long by ¼ in. wide; stamens in a large, spreading cluster, white, with yellow anthers.
See the marvellous fashion in which the Orchis Moris, our humble country orchid, combines the play of its rostellum and retinacula; observe the mathematical and automatic inclination and adhesion of its pollinia; as also the unerring double seesaw of the anthers of the wild sage, which touch the body of the visiting insect at a particular spot in order that the insect may, in its turn, touch the stigma of the neighbouring flower at another particular spot; watch, too, in the case of the Pedicularis Sylvatica, the successive, calculated movements of its stigma; and indeed the entrance of the bee into any one of these three flowers sets every organ vibrating, just as the skilful marksman who hits the black spot on the target will cause all the figures to move in the elaborate mechanisms we see in our village fairs.
If only for its lovely white flowers, with bright, pinky anthers, it is well worthy of a place even in a selection of ornamental flowering trees and shrubs. It is, however, rendered doubly valuable in that the cordate-ovate leaves turn of a warm brick colour in the autumn, while the fruit, and which is usually produced abundantly, is of the brightest red.
This account was related to me by R.W. Darwin, Esq; of Elston, in Nottinghamshire, who showed me the plant in flower, July 2d, 1788, with a fly thus held fast by the end of its proboscis, and was well seen by a magnifying lens, and which in vain repeatedly struggled to disengage itself, till the converging anthers were separated by means of a pin: on some days he had observed that almost every flower of this elegant plant had a fly in it thus entangled; and a few weeks afterwards favoured me with his further observations on this subject.
Other bell-flowers hang their apertures downwards, as many of the lilies; in those the pistil, when at maturity, is longer than the stamens; and by this pendant attitude of the bell, when the anthers burst, their dust falls on the stigma: and these are at the same time sheltered as with an umbrella from rain and dews.
The spines are ½ in. long, slightly recurved, flattened, and pale brown. Flowers large, clustered on the top of the stem, about half a dozen opening together; width 2 in.; petals numerous, narrow, toothed at the tips, spreading; colour a deep sulphur-yellow, anthers orange. Native of Oaxaca, Mexico. Flowering season, July. Introduced 1840.
Of these the anthers and stigmas have already been shewn to possess some organs of sense, to be nourished by honey, and to have the power of generation like insects, and have thence been announced amongst the animal kingdom in Sect. XIII. and to these must be added the buds and bulbs which constitute the viviparous offspring of vegetation.
The anthers that bear the pollen are hidden far back in the hood of the flower, so that the pollen can neither fall nor can the wind carry it away; but the two anthers are supported on a sort of spring, and directly a bee goes to the flower and pushes in his head to get the honey, the spring is depressed and both anthers start forward, of course depositing their pollen on the hairy back of the bee, which carries it to the stigma of the next flower.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking