in the struggle of their immediate surroundings, and inheriting the
peculiarity of their parent, showed flowers possessing the same
cross-fertilizing device. The seeds from these, again scattering,
continued the unequal struggle in a larger and larger field and in
increasing numbers, continually crowding out all their less vigorous
competitors of the same species, at length to become entire masters of
the field and the only representatives left to perpetuate the line of
descent.

Thus we find in almost every flower we meet some astonishing development
by which this cross-fertilization is effected, by which the
transferrence of the pollen from one flower to the stigma of another is
assured, largely through the agency of insects, frequently by the wind
and water, occasionally by birds. In many cases this is assured by the
pollen-bearing flowers and stigmatic flowers being entirely distinct,
as in cucumbers and Indian-corn; perhaps on different plants, as in the
palms and willows; again by the pollen maturing and disseminating before
the stigma is mature, as already mentioned, and _vice versa_.

From these, the simplest forms, we pass on to more and more complicated
conditions, anomalies of form and structure--devices, mechanisms, that
are past belief did we not observe them in actuality with our own eyes,
as well as the absolutely convincing demonstration of the intention
embodied: exploding flowers, shooting flowers, flower-traps, stamen
embraces, pollen showers, pollen plasters, pollen necklaces, and floral
pyrotechnics--all demonstrations in the floral etiquette of welcome and
_au revoir_ to insects.

From the simplest and regular types of flowers, as in the buttercup, we
pass on to more and more involved and unsymmetrical forms, as the
columbine, monk's-hood, larkspur, aristolochia, and thus finally to the
most highly specialized or involved forms of all, as seen in the
orchid--the multifarious, multiversant orchid; the beautiful orchid; the
ugly orchid; the fragrant orchid; the fetid orchid; the graceful,
homely, grotesque, uncanny, mimetic, and, until the year 1859, the
absolutely non-committal and inexplicable flower; the blossom which had
waited through the ages for Darwin, its chosen interpreter, ere she
yielded her secret to humanity.

And what is an orchid? How are we to know that this blossom which we
plucked is an orchid? The average reader will exclaim, "Because it is an
air-plant"--the essential requisi