108 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



er bloom. Another is its cousin the fringed polygala or flower- 

 ing wintergreen, one of the most charming of all our wild blos- 

 soms; and I have found also in the pine barren region of our 

 Atlantic coast a grass that mingles earth-born flowers with its 

 roots. 



In all these cases the underground flowers are quite small 

 and never develop petals, but they are more prolific in the 

 production of seed than the showy ones of the upper world. 

 Imprisoned in the dark, hidden away from the diversions of a 

 sunlight life, they have nothing to do but devote themselves 

 strictly to the business of seed making ; their capacity for beau- 

 ty has been checked in the bud, and from infancy they have 

 been disciples of the practical life while other flowers are lead- 

 ing a debonair, open-air existence, entertaining the bees and 

 dispensing fragrance and beauty to every passer-by. So have 

 we seen the Gradgrinds of business shut themselves in their 

 dingy counting-houses with no thought but to turn their ener- 

 gy into dollars ; while other men are wholesomely helping their 

 neighbors, enjoying God's blessed sunshine, and taking their 

 families upon a holiday now and then. 



But flowers have other ways of hiding than burrowing in 

 the ground. The fig tree, for instance, has such a secretive 

 method of flowering that people who have lived within the 

 shade of one all their lives, will sometimes contend that it 

 never blooms. As a matter of fact the branches bear every 

 year tens of thousands of blossoms, not one of which is ever 

 seen by the human eye. They are borne on the inner walls of 

 hollow, jug-like receptacles, which just before the leaves ex- 

 pand in the spring, push out upon the young twigs. In this 

 darkling chamber, into which the sunlight never penetrates, 

 the tiny florets packed side by side in a sociable company, 

 mature and produce their seeds. The snug little house grows 

 rapidly and gathering juiciness as it grows, becomes the 

 delicious fig that we all like. 



