Lord Avebury's Address 105 



are opened up by flowers. But leaves and seeds are 

 almost equally interesting. There is a reason for 

 everything in this world, and there must be some 

 cause for the different forms of leaves. In Ruskin's 

 vivid words " they take all kinds of strange shapes, 

 as if to invite us to examine them. Star- shaped, 

 heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, 

 fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, sinuated, in whorls, 

 in tufts, in spires, in wreaths, endlessly expressive, 

 deceptive, fantastic, never the same from footstalk to 

 blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt our watch- 

 fulness and take delight in outstepping our wonder." 



Some of these indeed have been explained, but for 

 the differences in the leaves of ferns, for instance, sea- 

 weeds, and many others, no satisfactory suggestion, so 

 far as I know, has yet been offered. 



Look again at fruits and seeds, what beauty both 

 of form and colour, and what infinite variety! Even 

 in nearly allied species, in our common wild gera- 

 niums, veronicas, forget-me-nots, &c., no two species 

 have seeds which are identical in size, form, or texture 

 of surface. In fact, the problems which every field 

 and wood, every common and hedgerow, every pond 

 and stream, and last, not least, the sea-shore offer us 

 are endless and most interesting. The late Lord 

 Derby used to say, that considering the marvellous 

 discoveries of the last hundred years, we could not 

 expect so much progress in the future. To me it 

 seems, on the contrary, that we may reasonably expect 

 even more, and for three reasons. 



In the first place, our instruments and apparatus 

 are so much more elaborate and ingenious. In the 

 second place, the students are more numerous. Even 



