Plants -- Identification; Wild flowers -- Great Britain
The stamens, of which there are two pairs, project beyond the upper lip
of the corolla; and the four nutlets of the fruit are rough and united.
The Yellow Dead Nettle, Weasel-snout, or Archangel (_Galeobdolon lutea_
or _Lamium Galeobdolon_) of the same order is very much like the White
Dead Nettle (p. 102) in habit, but is rather more slender, and
less branched. It is not a very common plant, but is abundant in certain
localities, forming one of the conspicuous flowers of thickets, copses
and shady hedgerows during May and June. Its leaves are opposite,
stalked, ovate, acute, and coarsely toothed; and the handsome large
yellow flowers are in dense whorls of from six to ten in the axils of
the upper leaves. The calyx has five short teeth; and the corolla has a
short tube, not much longer than the calyx, and two lips, the upper of
which is arched, while the lower is spotted with red, and has three
lobes.
Our next example, the lovely Primrose (_Primula vulgaris_ or _P.
acaulis_--order _Primulaceæ_), which so beautifully bedecks our woods
and banks in April and May, is so well known that a description for
purposes of identification is quite unnecessary.
There are two distinct forms of the primrose flower, often called the
pin-eyed and the thrum-eyed, the two forms growing on different plants.
The former has its stamens at a contracted portion of the tube, about
half way down, and a style so long that the stigma is visible at the top
of the tube. The latter has its stamens at the contracted throat of the
tube, while the style is so short that the stigma is half-way down.
[Illustration: THE BUGLE.]
These two forms may be termed the long-styled and the short-styled
primrose, respectively, and the difference is of great importance,
inasmuch as it helps to bring about the cross-fertilisation of the
flower.
[Illustration: THE BROAD-LEAVED GARLIC.]
The principal agents concerned in the transfer of pollen from one flower
to another are the wind and insects, but it is evident that the work is
done, in the case of the primrose, by insects; for not only do we find
that the anthers and the stigma are protected from the wind, being more
or less hidden in the tube of the corolla, but the showy corolla, the
delicate scent emitted by the flower, and the nectar produced at the
base of the tube all combine to encourage nectar-loving insects whose
proboscis is long enough to reach the sweets.
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