174 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



is the place usually the most brilliant, as in the 

 Buttercups, Speedwells, and all others. But in a 

 cluster of Apple-blossom the unopened flowers, owing 

 to the accident of their petals being coloured in the 

 wrong place, enormously assist in the successful 

 fertilisation of the central flower, and thus \}s\^ young 

 flowers perform the same helpful function which 

 in the BoraginacecE (Forget-me-not, Viper's Bugloss, 

 Borage, etc.) is performed by the older ones. It cannot 

 fail to be noticed that this central Apple-blossom is 

 often the only one which bears an apple. All the 

 rest " take their chance," so that every cluster of 

 such blossoms preaches the precious doctrine of 

 altruism. 



I have said that leaves are '' vegetable units." 

 Flowers and their parts are only modifications of 

 them. Hence, every floral organ is also a unit, 

 specialised for a distinct work, whether that work be 

 successful or not. A leaf-bud is as much a " colony " 

 of leaves, in an inchoate and undeveloped condition, 

 however, as the flower-head of a daisy is a floral 

 community ; and the same altruistic law is observable 

 in an unopened leaf- bud as in the capituluni of a 

 composite plant. The most perfect of all vegetable 

 organisations are those in which some members bear 

 the burden of the rest, and I know nothing which 

 more forcibly impresses one with the importance of 

 this law than the leaf-buds of our commonest trees 

 and shrubs. 



