Abstract
I FEAR that Dr. H. Müller's passage in Schenk's “Handbuch” would occupy too much space to be given here in full; but I can condense what he says into a few lines. Dr. Müller takes the Veronica chamædrys as representing a type of flowers in which the anthers have to be brought into a position to strike the body of the insect by the action of the insect itself. He finds the same arrangement in the V. urticaœfolia. These flowers are visited by insects of various kinds, but their structure is, he thinks, explained only by what takes place when they are visited by Syrphidœ. When one of these insects visits such a flower, it hovers for some seconds before it, then settles upon the lower lobe of the corolla, without noticing the style which is coloured like the corolla, and which is now under the insect's body. It then crawls higher to reach the nectary, and in doing so bends down the stamens—which are also coloured like the corolla—until the anthers strike against the under part of the insect's body. The pollen thus obtained is carried to another flower, and brought into contact with the stigma when the insect first alights; and fresh pollen is again obtained by the attempts to reach the nectary. Dr. Müller either knows from observation or assumes that in the V. chamœdrys anthers and stigma are mature at the same time. He attaches importance to the fact that both stamens and style are coloured like the corolla, and therefore appear to escape the observation of the insect; and the thinness of the base of the stamen is also noticed by him as one feature in the adaptation of the flower to the visits of Syrphidœ. He does not refer to the looseness of the corolla. Mr. Stapley's suggestion that this may play some part in the work of cross fertilisation is an ingenious one, and calls for further research.
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RANSOM, A. The Fertilisation of the Speedwell . Nature 27, 223 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/027223b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/027223b0
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