MORE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. I 23 



dust of pollen-grains. As soon as the pollen is 

 all shed, the downward-pointing hairs wither 

 away ; the lobster-pot ceases to act ; and the 

 midges are at liberty to t^y away to another plant, 

 where they similarly begin to fertilise the female 

 flowers. Observe that, if the stamens were the 

 first to ripen here, the pollen would fall on the 

 stigmas of the same plant, but that, by making 

 the stigmas be the first to mature, the cuckoo-pint 

 secures for itself the desired end of cross-fertili- 

 sation. 



In this case it is an interesting fact that all 

 the stages which led to the existing arrangement 

 of the flowers still remain visible in other plants 

 for us. These very reduced little blossoms of the 

 cuckoo-pint, consisting each of a single carpel or 

 a single stamen, are yet the descendants of per- 

 fect blossoms which had once a regular calyx and 

 corolla. Near relations of the cuckoo-pint live in 

 Europe and Africa to this day, which recapitulate 

 for us, as it were, the various stages in its slow evo- 

 lution. Some, the oldest in type, have a calyx 

 and corolla, green and inconspicuous, with six 

 stamens inside them, enclosing a two or three- 

 celled ovary. These are still essentially lilies in 

 structure. But they have the flowers clustered, 

 as in cuckoo-pint, on a thick club-stem, and they 

 have an open spathe, which more or less protects 

 them. Our English sweet-sedge is still at this 

 stage of evolution. The marsh-calla of Northern 

 Europe and Canada, on the other hand, has a 

 handsome white spathe to attract insects, while 

 its separate flowers, still both male and female to- 

 gether, have each six stamens and a single ovary. 

 But they have lost their perianth. The common 

 white ^rum or " calla lily " of cottage gardens ha§ 



