THE VOICES OF FLOWERS. 17 



West Indies, and, finding room for its tiny roots, lias there 

 spread forth its branches, and thus been carried from place to 

 place on the back of the insect. Some larger seeds, unable 

 to travel through the air without aid, are provided with 

 various forms of wings and fringes, and, thus prepared, have 

 been caught up by the wind and have travelled many miles 

 uninjured. Linnaeus supposes that a plant (Eriyeron Canadense) 

 which suddenly appeared in England, never before known 

 except in Canada, grew from a seed which had crossed the 

 Atlantic through the air. And seeds have sprung up on the 

 southern coast of Spain which had ripened on the northern 

 shores of Africa. 



While some flowers produce the pollen which is necessary 

 to its own fruitfulness, others will bear no fruit unless the 

 pollen from others fall upon the pistils of their own ilowers. 

 In that little floating particle of pollen-dust resides the mys 

 terious power to produce a seed which shall spring up, and 

 bear leaves, and branches, and flowers, and fruit, which often 

 show the very diseases of the parent tree. Under the microscope 

 each minute particle of dust which forms the pollen of a lily 

 appears precisely like all the other pollen of the same flower ; 

 and this form will always be the same for every lily. In one 

 flower the dust is like a ball, having on its surface eight equidis 

 tant points, as in the hollyhock; and that form will always be 

 found the same in that flower. In others, as in the fuchsia (lady s 

 ear-drop) and violet, its form is that of an egg with varying 

 compartments. In others, again, the form is triangular, or elon 

 gated, or pointed ; but in each flower the pollen presents a change 



