TABLE 5/67. Specularia speculum. Heights of plants measured in inches. Column 1: Number (Name) of Pot. Column 2: Tallest Crossed Plant in each Pot. Column 3: Tallest Self-fertilised Plant in each Pot. Pot 1 : 18 : 15 6/8. Pot 2 : 17 : 19. Pot 3 : 22 1/8 : 18. Pot 4 : 20 : 23. Total : 77.13 : 75.75. The four tallest crossed plants averaged 19.28, and the four tallest self-fertilised 18.93 inches in height; or as 100 to 98. So that there was no difference worth speaking of between the two lots in height; though other great advantages are derived, as we have seen, from cross-fertilisation. From being grown in pots and kept in the greenhouse, none of the plants produced any capsules. Lobelia ramosa. (5/22. I have adopted the name given to this plant in the ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle’ 1866. Professor T. Dyer, however, informs me that it probably is a white variety of L. tenuior of R. Brown, from W. Australia.) VAR. SNOW-FLAKE. The well-adapted means by which cross-fertilisation is ensured in this genus have been described by several authors. (5/23. See the works of Hildebrand and Delpino. Mr. Farrer also has given a remarkably clear description of the mechanism by which cross-fertilisation is effected in this genus, in the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ volume 2 4th series 1868 page 260. In the allied genus Isotoma, the curious spike which projects rectangularly from the anthers, and which when shaken causes the pollen to fall on the back of an entering insect, seems to have been developed from a bristle, like one of those which spring from the anthers in some of or all the species of Lobelia, as described by Mr. Farrer.) The pistil as it slowly increases in length pushes the pollen out of the conjoined anthers, by the aid of a ring of bristles; the two lobes of the stigma being at this time closed and incapable of fertilisation. The extrusion of the pollen is also aided by insects, which rub against the little bristles that project from the anthers. The pollen thus pushed out is carried by insects to the older flowers, in which the stigma of the now freely projecting pistil is open and ready to be fertilised. I proved the importance of the gaily-coloured corolla, by cutting off the large flowers of Lobelia erinus; and these flowers were neglected by the hive-bees which were incessantly visiting the other flowers.