stration]

In some flowers this separation is effected, as I have shown, by their
maturing at different periods; in others, as in the iris, by mere
mechanical means; while in a long list of plants, as in the willow,
poplar, hemp, oak, and nettle, the cross-fertilization is absolutely
necessitated by the fact of the staminate and stigmatic flowers being
either separated on the same stalk or on different plants, the pollen
being carried by insects or the wind. We may see a pretty illustration
of this in the little wild flower known as the devil's-bit (_Chamaelirium
luteum,_), whose long, white, tapering spire of feathery bloom may often
be seen rising above the sedges in the swamp. Two years ago I chanced
upon a little colony of four or five plants at the edge of a bog. The
flowers, all of them, were mere petals and stamens (B, Fig. 8). I looked
in vain for a single stigmatic plant or flower; but far across the
swamp, a thousand feet distant, I at length discovered a single spire,
composed entirely of pistillate flowers, as shown in A (Fig. 8), and my
magnifying-glass clearly revealed the pollen upon their
stigmas--doubtless a welcome message brought from the isolated affinity
afar by some winged sponsor, to whom the peculiar fragrance of the
flower offers a special attraction, and thus to whom the fortunes of the
devil's-bit have been committed.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Fig. 8]

The presence of fragrance and honey in a dioecious flower may be
accepted in the abstract as almost conclusive of an insect affinity, as
in most flowers of this class, notably the beech, pine, dock, grasses,
etc., the wind is the fertilizing agent, and there is absence alike of
conspicuous color, fragrance, and nectar--attributes which refer alone
to insects, or possibly humming-birds in certain species.

Look where we will among the blossoms, we find the same beautiful plan
of intercommunion and reciprocity everywhere demonstrated. The means
appear without limit in their evolved--rather, I should say,
involved--ingenuity. Pluck the first flower that you meet in your stroll
to-morrow, and it will tell you a new story.

[Illustration]

Only a few days since, while out on a drive, I passed a luxuriant clump
of the plant known as "horse-balm." I had known it all my life, and
twenty years previously had made a careful analytical drawing of the
mere botanical specimen. What could it say to me now in my more
questioning mood? Its queer