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I have now to bring under your notice another case, perhaps 
more remarkable than any yet mentioned, that of the Stapelia 
Airsuta, or Carrion flower ; one of a large genus of African plants, 
most of the species being natives of the Cape of Good Hope. 
They are succulent plants without leaves, frequently covered over 
with dark tubercles, giving them a very grotesque appearance. 
The flowers are large, of various colours, but in most instances 
give off very unpleasant odours. The corolla of the S, hirsuta 
is of a dark chocolate crimson colour and very large, the whole 
flower having somewhat the appearance of a good-sized rose. 
“The smell is said to be so like that of carrion, that flesh-flies 
“ actually come and deposit their eggs in the flower. When the 
“maggots are produced, they wander about looking for food 
4‘ which is not there, and are starved for the want of it.” 
Surely nature is in fault here—some might be inclined to say ; 
charging her with the neglect of her own offspring and suffering 
them to be starved in this way. But science is not concerned 
with final causes. She is not called upon to say why things are 
permitted thus to be, but simply to investigate and explain, if 
possible, from what causes such phenomena may have arisen in 
the first instance. 
This is not in the present case an easy problem to solve; but 
I see no reason why we should not attempt the solution of it. 
‘On mentioning some of the cases above spoken of to one of our 
first botanists in this country, he seemed inclined to push the 
question aside altogether, as one that could not be answered and 
was not worth considering. But it was not so in the case of two 
other botanists, also of high reputation—one Professor of Botany 
at Cooper’s Hill, the other a reader in Botany at Cambridge— 
both, too, well up in Physiological Botany. These gentlemen were 
together at my house one day during the week of the meeting 
of the British Association, at Bath, last year, and I brought this 
subject before them in conversation. It was a question quite 
new to them, they had never considered it, but they thought 
