64 FLOWERS OF PLANTS. 



act, great discretion is necessary in their adminis- 

 tration. This hellebore is one of our few plants 

 that present us with a dull, unsightly, unpleasing 

 blossom. We have many with a corolla so small 

 as to be little noticed ; but this plant, and the fetid 

 iris (iris fcetidissima) , produce blossoms that would 

 generally be considered as darksome and cheerless. 

 There is no part of a vegetable which we usually 

 admire more than its flowers, for that endless variety 

 of colours, shades, forms, and odours, with which 

 they are endowed ; yet the utility of the blossom is 

 by no means obvious. Linnaeus calls the corolla 

 the arras, the tapestry of the plant; and we are 

 perfectly sensible that the blossom in very many 

 instances is essential in various ways to securing 

 and perfecting the germen ; that it often contains 

 the food of multitudes of insects, which feed on the 

 pollen, the honey, or the germen ; and that the 

 odour emitted by it leads frequently various crea- 

 tures to the object in request, and, by their agency, 

 the fecundation and perfecting of the seeds are often 

 effected : but we are astonished at the elaborate 

 mechanism and splendour of some species, and see 

 the whole race of creation, with the exception of 

 man, utterly regardless of them. Butterflies and 

 other insects will bask on expanded flowers, and 

 frequent their disks, but it is in wantonness, or to 

 feed on the sweet liquors they contain. The car- 

 penter-bee, that every summer cuts its little circular 

 patches in such quantities from my roses to line its 

 nest in the old garden-door, selects the green leaves 



