. Handbook of flower pollination : based upon Hermann Mu?ller's work 'The fertilisation of flowers by insects' . Fertilization of plants. AROIDEAE 489 the spadix projecting from it, serve to attract minute midges, particularly those of the genus Psychoda. The decomposing, urinous smell of the inflorescence during anthesis is a further attraction. The ventricose lower part of the spathe forms a temporary prison for the small visitors. As they creep downwards on the projecting, red-brown end of the spadix, they reach several rows of stiff bristles situated close above one another at the top of t
. Handbook of flower pollination : based upon Hermann Mu?ller's work 'The fertilisation of flowers by insects' . Fertilization of plants. AROIDEAE 489 the spadix projecting from it, serve to attract minute midges, particularly those of the genus Psychoda. The decomposing, urinous smell of the inflorescence during anthesis is a further attraction. The ventricose lower part of the spathe forms a temporary prison for the small visitors. As they creep downwards on the projecting, red-brown end of the spadix, they reach several rows of stiff bristles situated close above one another at the top of the contraction in the spathe, which stretch from the narrowed spadix to the inner surface of the spathe. The midges creep through them in order to reach the warmth and the red-brown colouring of the inner surface of the spathe, which from this point widens into a pit. They cannot at once escape from this. The threads would not hinder their creeping back through them, but the insects try to fly out, and fail to escape by this means, as they are only struck back by the fence of bristles when they fly towards the bright upper part of the pit. The small prisoners find the mature stigmas in the first stage of anthesis, and deposit foreign pollen upon them in the attempt to gain the open once more. The stigmas then shrivel up, and in the place of each appears a minute drop of nectar, as compensation to the insects for their delay and their work of pollination. The anthers now dehisce and let their pollen escape, so that it fills the base of the pit, and the small visitors are dusted with it. Mean- while the bristles barring the en- trance have become limp, and the spathe opened out, and the visitors can now leave their temporary prison without difficulty. I have often observed that on cutting open a spathe the midges imme- diately fly to another plant and again creep down into the trap. On leaving the flower, therefore, they will go to another, and dust the stigmas with the foreign p
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