102 Sir John Lubbock [April 25, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, April 25, 1890. 



Colonel James A. Grant, C.B. C.S.I. F.E.S. Manager and Vice- 

 President, in tlie Chair. 



The Kight Hon. Sir John Lubbock, Bart. M.P. D.C.L. LL.D. 



F.E.S. M.BJ, 



The Shapes of Leaves and Cotyledons. 



Attempts to explain the forms, colours, and other characteristics of 

 animals and plants, though not new, were until recent years far from 

 successful. 



Our Teutonic forefathers had a pretty story which explained 

 certain characteristics of several common plants. Balder, the God 

 of Mirth and Merriment, was, characteristically enough, regarded 

 as deficient in the possession of immortality. The other divinities, 

 fearing to lose him, petitioned Thor to make him immortal, and 

 the prayer was granted on condition that every animal and plant 

 would swear not to injure him. To secure this object, Nanna, 

 Balder's wife, descended upon the earth. Loki, the God of Envy, 

 attended her, disguised as a crow (crows at that time were white), 

 and settled on a little blue flower, hoping to cover it up so that 

 she might overlook it. The flower, however, cried out " forget- 

 me-not, forget-me-not " (and has ever since been known under that 

 name). Loki then flew up into an oak and sat on a mistletoe. Here 

 he was more successful. Nanna carried off the oath of the oak, but 

 overlooked the mistletoe. She thought, however, and the divinities 

 thou'^ht, that she had successfully accomplished her mission, and that 

 Balder had received the gift of immortality. 



One day, thinking Balder proof, they amused themselves by 

 shooting at him, posting him against a holly. Loki tij)j)ed an arrow 

 with a piece of mistletoe, against which Balder ^vas not proof. This, 

 unfortunately, pierced him to the heart, and he fell dead. Some drops 

 of his blood dropped on the holly, which accounts for the redness of 

 the berries ; the mistletoe was so grieved that she has ever since 

 borne fruit like tears ; and the crow, whose form Loki had taken, and 

 which till then had been white, was turned- black. 



This pretty myth accounts for several things, but is open to fatal 

 objections. \ou will judge whether I am more fortunate. In the 

 first place I need hardly observe that the forms of leaves are almost 

 infinitely varied. To quote Euskin's vivid words, they " take all kinds 

 of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Star-shaped, 

 heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, clelt, 

 furrowed, serrated, sinuated, in whorls, in tufts, in spires, in wreaths, 

 endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the tame from foot- 



