160 Natural TJieology. 



some of our viburnums ? We may be told that 

 they have no use, or that these apparently useless 

 parts will at some time be found to be of importance 

 in the economy of the plant, aiding directly or indi- 

 rectly in the perpetuation of the species, as the 

 honey of the plant attracts bees, and thus secures 

 the continuance of the species by the fertilization 

 of the seed. We will go one step further, then, and 

 ask : What end is subserved by double flowers ? 

 All agree that one use of the flower is to produce 

 seed. But the perfectly double flower loses the 

 organs of reproduction. The rose unfolds its 

 stamens and pistils into petals, and thus gains in 

 beauty, till it becomes the perfection of a flower, 

 but always at the expense of seed. What use, in 

 the economy of the plant, does the flower subserve 

 when it can no longer produce seed ? It does not 

 perpetuate the species, so that this variation cannot 

 be for the production of new species, and more than 

 this, it is a draft upon the nutriment that would 

 otherwise go to build up the plant that produces it. 

 By becoming double, the flower has ceased to be of 

 advantage either to the species or the individual 

 plant. But does nature thus defeat her own ends, 

 and provide for the destruction of some species by 

 the very law of their growth ? Not at all. In 

 every plant, which by cultivation is so far changed 

 as to lose the power of producing seed, there is some 

 other provision for the propagation of the plant, as 

 by slips, by grafting, by bulblets, and the like. 

 Nature seems thus to provide, in the structure of 



