130 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



May not color be of more importance in botany than the system-mak- 

 ers have supposed ? How did flowers come by their colors ? 



If two colors are placed in juxtaposition, to produce the most 

 pleasing effect they should be complementary, as red and green, orange 

 and blue, yellow and purple. What, now, is Nature's method among 

 her flowers ? 



He who has seen the calypso will remember it as the rarest of color- 

 gems. The petals are of brilliant purple, the lip, deep within of gor- 

 geous yellow, shades off into purple inoculated with darker purple. 

 This floral gem is painted in two colors complementary to each other. 



From calypso, which is rare, you pass to a flower of the same fam- 

 ily which is not uncommon, the showy lady's- slipper ( Cypripedium 

 spectabile). In this we have three colors. The petals are snow-white, 

 the lip is lustrous white melting into magenta, which in turn deepens 

 into purple, and the sterile stamen, which mimics a petal and dips into 

 the sac formed by the inflated lip, is pale yellow. The white of our 

 lady's-slipper is the purple and yellow blended together ; and we shall 

 find, in general, that when a flower has three colors, two of which are 

 complementary, the third will be white^ representing the blending of 

 the other two. 



The wild-asters, like the calypso, are of two colors, the color of 

 the ray being, in general, complementary to that of the disk, and thus 

 the most common of our autumnal flowers are pleasing to the eye. 

 The rose and English hawthorn are of one color, which harmonizes 

 with the foliage, as red is the complement of green. But Nature has 

 another side. 



The corolla of the closed gentian, which is set in a green calyx, is 

 deep blue. Here is chromatic discord.^ The " lilac "-colored flowers 

 of the lilac, in contrast with the green leaves, form another discord. 

 No lady would think of dressing in lilac and green. 



Our buttercups and golden-rods are yellow. In the golden-rod 

 neither the yellow of the flower nor the green of the foliage is strongly 

 marked, and the contrast is not displeasing. But the bright yellow 

 of the buttercup against the fresh green of the leaves and the spring 

 grass makes a chromatic discord. Green and yellow are not in accord, 

 and Shakespeare, taking green for j^outh and yellow for jealousy, uses 

 this color-discord with fine effect: 



" She never told her love, 

 But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 

 Feed on her damask cheek ; she pined in thought, 

 And with a green and yellow melancholy, 

 She sat like patience on a monument, 

 Smiling at grief.'' 



^ Green and blue — green tends to give its complementary, red, to the blue, which ren- 

 ders it more violet ; blue tends to give its complementary, orange, to green, which ren- 

 ders it more yellow. 



