458 THE UNIVERSE. 



flowers sufficed to produce instant death, but they are per- 

 haps apocryphal. 1 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE NUPTIALS OF PLANTS. 



Darwin wrote a delightful poem entitled the " Loves of 

 the Plants." The chaste pen of the English poet has there 

 sketched, in a most attractive manner, the mysterious his- 

 tory of the fecundation of plants. All is hidden behind 

 a most graceful veil, and there is nothing to alarm the 

 strictest propriety. 



As we have seen, the flower is difficult to describe. Lin- 

 naBus, by the medium of one of the most ingenious meta- 

 phors, gives a chafining idea of it. It is, he says, the nup- 

 tial couch in which the wedding of the plants is celebrated. 

 This yields a delightful perfume of poesy, but so soon as 

 we aspire to more exactitude the difficulty begins. 



What is popularly called the flower is but a sumptuous 

 and almost useless ornament ; the most essential parts lie 

 unperceived. In the eyes of the botanist the true floral 

 apparatus consists only of the little filaments placed near 

 the centre. These are the spouses : the pistils or brides, 

 and the stamens or bridegrooms. 



1 The death of one of the (laughters of Nicholas I., Count of Salins (in the 

 department of Jura), and that of a Bishop of Poland, are attributed to the ema- 

 nations from roses. But these facts, related by the historian Cromer, are prob- 

 ably inexact. 



