36 FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



on this plan, cannot conveniently fertilize themselves. The parts 

 involved in the act seem to be thus purposely arranged, so that 

 they cannot come in contact. It has been observed in other flowers 

 thus constructed, that they are very nicely arranged to utilize the 

 help of bees and other insects in cross-fertilization, for the pollen 

 from flowers with long stamens will be placed on the insect which 

 comes for their honey, in exactly the right position to be most 

 easily communicated to the stigma of a flower with a long pistil. 

 So with the flowers having short stamens, and those having short 

 pistils. 



If one looks closely he will see beneath the rows of roundish, 

 opposite, green leaves, just at the base of the leaf-stalk, a pair of 

 minute scales, or stipules. They seem to be of no use to the 

 plant, nor are they ornamental. But the trained botanist sees in 

 them great significance. They are the unmistakable signs that our 

 little creeping vine is the " long lost and far wandered scion of a 

 noble house." This humble denizen of our woods has aristocratic 

 connections, and is almost our only representative of a large and 

 influential family in the kingdom of plants, whose native home is 

 in a more genial clime than ours, a family distinguished in some 

 of its members, by the most considerable and most honorable ser- 

 vices to mankind. 



I need mention but two or three of these to show that. The 

 Coffee plant furnishes the material for a decoction which is the 

 most universal and most delicious drink (when rightly made and 

 rightly served) that art has yet educed from nature. In the bark 

 of the Cinchona tree, Peruvian Bark, is found one of the most 

 invaluable drugs employed in the art of healing, and one which, 

 perhaps, as a defence against the subtle poisons of malaria, has 



