FLORAL DIPLOMACY. 6i 



until they are now the chief marvels of vegetable 

 organisation, and the delight of every cultivated 

 mind. 



To thoroughly understand the amazing variety — 

 in size, shape, colour, and perfume — among flowers 

 we must consider the whole question from their own 

 point of view. Hitherto we have taken it for 

 granted that flowers were created chiefly, if not 

 wholly, for human delight or use, and have, with an 

 unintentional irreligion due to ignorance, expressed 

 our wonder why all plants did not administer either 

 to our utilitarian or aesthetic needs ! It is not 

 necessary here to mention the ingenious guesses 

 which have been put forth to account for the apparent 

 anomaly of unattractive, useless, and even poisonous 

 plants ; for no botanist now doubts that such specu- 

 lations are all wrong. If modern botany had done 

 nothing besides abolishing these crude views, it would 

 have a claim to gratitude ; but it has done more — it 

 has taught us to regard plants as fellow creatures, 

 regulated by the same laws of life as those affecting 

 hum.an beings themselves ! 



To understand the structure of flowers, there- 

 fore, we must first of all consider how far they are 

 useful to the end for which flowers were developed. 

 This, of course, is the production of seeds, each of 

 which contains an embryonic individual plant. 



The process by which an ovule is converted and 

 developed into a seed has already been sketched. 



