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In temperate latitudes we find many flowers fertilised by insects, attracted by honey-bearing nectaries; and in tropical America not only bees, moths, and other large insects carry the pollen from one flower to another, but many flowers, like the Marcgravia, are specially adapted to secure the aid of small birds, particularly humming-birds, for this purpose.
Whether other plants, which climb by their rootlets, emit any cement I do not know; but the rootlets of the Ivy, placed against glass, barely adhered to it, yet secreted a little yellowish matter. I may add, that the rootlets of the Marcgravia dubia can adhere firmly to smooth painted wood. Vanilla aromatica emits aerial roots a foot in length, which point straight down to the ground.
These and many others were certain to be found where the climbing Marcgravia nepenthoides expanded its curious flowers. The flowers of this lofty climber are disposed in a circle, hanging downwards, like an inverted candelabrum.
When this plant has climbed to the light, it produces free branches with rounded stems, clad with sharp- pointed leaves, wonderfully different in appearance from those borne by the stem as long as it remains adherent. This surprising difference in the leaves, I have also observed in a plant of Marcgravia dubia in my hothouse.
A good many plants come under this class, and are excellent climbers. One of the most remarkable is the Marcgravia umbellata, the stem of which in the tropical forests of South America, as I hear from Mr.
A second species of Marcgravia that I found in the woods around Santo Domingo has the pitchers placed close to the pedicels of the flowers, so that the birds must approach them from above; and in this species the flowers are turned upwards, and the pollen is brushed off by the breasts of the birds.
Amateurs who are so fortunate as to visit the West Indies have an opportunity to paint the wonderful blossoms of the Marcgravia, whose minister, a humming bird, quivers above it like a bit of rainbow loosened from the sky. Early in the history of art the wild flowers lent their aid to decoration.
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