DOUBLE FLOWERS. 63 



We will go one step further, then, and ask : What end is sub- 

 served by double flowers ? All agree that one use of the flower 

 is to produce seed. But the perfectly double flower loses the 

 organs of reproduction. The rose unfolds its stamens and 

 pistils into petals, and thus gains in beauty till it becomes the 

 perfection of a flower, but always at the expense of seed. 

 What use, in the economy of the plant, does the flower subserve 

 when it can no longer produce seed ? It does not perpetuate 

 the species, so that this variation cannot be for the production of 

 new species ; and more than this, it is a draft upon the nutri- 

 ment that would otherwise go to build up the plant that produces 

 it. By becoming double the flower has ceased to be of advan- 

 tage either to the species or the individual plant. But does 

 Nature thus defeat her own ends, and provide for the destruc- 

 tion of some species by the very law of their growth ? Not at 

 all. In every plant which by cultivation is so far changed as to 

 lose the power of producing seed, there is som'e other provision 

 for the propagation of the plant, as by slips, by grafting, by 

 bublets, and the like. Nature seems thus to provide, in the 

 structure of other parts of these plants, for the development of 

 their flowers in the line of beauty at the expense of seed. And 

 when annual plants, become double, they at the same time 

 become perennial. 



Let us examine another group of plants, belonging to the 

 same natural order as the rose. For what purpose is the fruit 

 of the apple-tree, the pear-tree and the peach ? Their seed is 

 evidently for the propagation of the species. But still we ask : 

 For what purpose are the apple and the peach ? The germ is in 

 the seed, or within the stone. The economy of the plant does 

 not require that the covering of the seeds should be increased in 

 quantity or heightened in flavor, for the seeds come to their 

 fullest development in the unchanged native fruit. If the 

 improvement in size and flavor is not for the seed, it has no 

 relation to the plant. And probably no candid person will con- 

 tend that the change in cultivated fruits, which renders them 

 more valuable to man, has any more relation to the wants of 

 the individual plant, or of the species, than the milk of the 

 mother has to her own wants. If this change has any purpose 

 at all it is for something outside of the plant. The seed is not 

 for the plant that produces it, but for the species. The change 



