114 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
named, for it has oval leaves, broader in proportion to 
their length; but this has evidently been a more 
conspicuous plant in its time. It is such 
a common thing for both animals and 
plants that have “come down in the 
world,” so to speak, to still retain some 
small evidences of their having “seen 
better days” that every obscure detail of 
Chickwed Flower their structure has interest, though we 
cannot always catch the significance at 
a glance. Take the number of stamens: this will 
be found to be high in plants so highly specialised 
that they have entirely given up all power of self- 
fertilisation and are absolutely dependent upon the 
visits of insects. Throughout the entire family we 
find that ten stamens is the prevailing number, and 
we may find the full complement in the Chickweed, 
though its notched white petals have become smaller 
than the sepals. It still possesses honey-glands, which 
attract many insects in early spring, and I have no 
doubt that it once had flowers as large as those of the 
Stitchworts (which we have seen retain the power of 
self-fertilisation), but owing to some obscure cause 
a certain colony got neglected by insects and had to 
depend almost entirely upon self-fertilisation for the 
production of seed. The lack of stimulus given by 
insect-visits led to the reduction of the petals to a 
variable extent, and of the stamens to correspond; the 
object probably being to utilise the material in the 
production of a larger number of flowers and seeds. 
Anyway, we find that Chickweed has become an 
annual, that in winter its petals are often entirely 
absent, its stamens reduced to three, and to make sure 
