My Studio Neighbors

As in all the Compositae, the anthers are here united in a tube, the pollen being discharged within. At the base of this anther-tube rises the pistil, which gradually elongates, and like a piston forces out the pollen at the top. Small insects in creeping over the cone quickly dislodge it. In the next stage the anthers have withered, the flower-tube elongated, and the top of the two-parted pistil begins to protrude, and at length expands its tips, disclosing at the centre the stigmatic surface, which has until now been protected by close contact. (See section.) A glance at Fig. 11 will reveal the plan involved. The ring of pollen is inevitably scattered to the stigmas of the neighboring flowers, and cross-fertilization continually insured. Similar contrivances are to be found in most of the Compositae, through the same method being variously applied. Perhaps even more remarkable than any of the foregoing, which are more or less automatic in their movements, is the truly astonishing and seemingly conscious mechanism displayed in the wild arum of Great Britain--the "lords and ladies" of the village lanes, the foreign counterpart of our well-known jack-in-the-pulpit, or Indian-turnip, with its purple-streaked canopy, and sleek "preacher" standing erect beneath it. A representation of this arum is shown in Fig. 12, and a cross section at A, properly indexed. How confidently would the superficial--nay, even careful--examination of one of the old-time botanists have interpreted its structure: "How simple and perfect the structure! Observe how the anthers are placed so that pollen shall naturally fall directly on the stigmas and fertilize them!" Such would indeed appear to be intended, until it is actually discovered that the stigmas have withered when the pollen is shed--a device which, acting in association with the little ring of hairs, tells a strange story. It is not my fortune to have seen one of these singular blossoms, but from the description of the process of fertilization given in Hermann Mueller's wonderful work, aided by a botanical illustration of the structure of the flower, I am readily enabled to picture the progressive stages of the mechanism.