96 TALKS AFIELD. 



flowers must fertilize themselves. Here was 

 no expensive glitter of petals, no unnecessary 

 pollen to be wasted by improvident insects. 

 Dame Nature had evidently constructed 

 these flowers after the strictest economy, but 

 the patch of violets still prospered and in- 

 creased more abundantly than did the yellow 

 violets in the neighboring wood-lot, which 

 produced quantities of hairy pods every 

 spring. It was a matter of no little wonder 

 why the expensive blue flowers should be pro- 

 duced at all, when they apparently accom- 

 plished so little, and the insignificant hidden 

 flowers accomplished so much ; still, I was 

 glad that Nature had not adopted such a 

 penurious economy with all her flowers. 



I soon learned that these hidden flowers 

 of the violet were no new thing. Darwin, 

 of course, had seen and studied them. Sub- 

 sequently I found them on many different 

 plants, as the little dalibarda, the wood sorrel, 

 and others. Darwin gives a list of fifty-five 

 genera which have one or more species upon 

 which the hidden or cleistogamous flowers 

 are found. The Leguminosse or Pea family 

 contains more than any other. Some of the 

 species produce these flowers entirely under 

 ground, as the Amphicarpaea of our woods, 



