Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/342

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320
DARWINISM
CHAP.

Chile, where humming-birds are especially plentiful, we find great numbers of red tubular flowers, often of large size and apparently adapted to these little creatures. Such are the beautiful Lapageria and Philesia, the grand Pitcairneas, and the genera Fuchsia, Mitraria, Embothrium, Escallonia, Desfontainea, Eccremocarpus, and many Gesneraceae. Among the most extraordinary modifications of flower structure adapted

FIG. 31.—Humming-bird fertilising Marcgravia nepenthoides.
FIG. 31.—Humming-bird fertilising Marcgravia nepenthoides.

to bird fertilisation are the species of Marcgravia, in which the pedicels and bracts of the terminal portion of a pendent bunch of flowers have been modified into pitchers which secrete nectar and attract insects, while birds feeding on the nectar, or insects, have the pollen of the overhanging flowers dusted on their backs, and, carrying it to other flowers, thus cross-fertilise them (see Illustration).

In Australia and New Zealand the fine "glory peas" (Clianthus), the Sophora, Loranthus, many Epacrideae and Myrtaceae, and the large flowers of the New Zealand flax