Note 15 — ON THE UTILITY TO FLOWERS OF THEIR BEAUTY.

So long ago as 1840 M. Fromond enumerated several conspicuous flowers in which, according to his observations, fertilization was effected without the agency of either the wind or insects.15 And much more recently an American writer, Mr. Meehan, has given a list of eleven genera, amongst others, in which he has observed the pistils covered with the pollen of the plant before the flower has opened, and in the one case which he submitted to the microscope, it was found that the pollen tubes were descending through the pistil towards the ovarium.16 Amongst the genera he names were Westaria, Lathyras, Ballota, Circes Genista, Pisum, and Linaria.