FLORAL DIPLOMACY. 71 



of Cucumbers, etc. The process of differentiation 

 which has produced such a result is not yet com- 

 pleted in some species, as the Elm, Horse-chestnut, 

 and Common Ash {Fraxinus excelsior). On the last 

 we find ordinary flowers, possessing stamens and 

 pistil, and pistillate and staminate flowers as well. 

 The Common Maple {Acer campestre) is even less 

 advanced than the Ash, but it is being specialised in 

 the same direction. 



Among our British plants we have numerous 

 proofs that these remarkable adaptations to special 

 and important ends have been slowly and gradually 

 acquired. We infer that the hermaphrodite condition 

 of flowers is the natural one ; that is to say, all 

 flowers were originally possessed of both stamens 

 and pistils. To prevent self-fertilisation some kinds 

 of flowers bear stamens only, and others pistils only, 

 as above described ; and this plan is adopted for a 

 special purpose. On examining such flowers we see 

 no reason to doubt that originally they were like 

 ordinary flowers. The modification is going on in 

 our own times, and is probably suggested to the 

 plants by some change in their external condition of 

 life. Thus Darwin has shown that the flowers of 

 the common Strawberry, which in this country are 

 always hermaphroditic, in the United States are 

 becoming sexually separated into staminate and 

 pistillate kinds. The flowers of the Indian Corn 

 {Zea mays) are sometimes unisexual and at others 



