RIDDLES IN FLOWERS 
203 
great savants had been asked, " You have shown 
us that it is so, but why is it thus ?" they could 
only have replied, " We know not ; we only know 
that an all-wise Providence has so ordained and 
created it." 
Take this little collection, which I have here 
presented, of stamens and petals selected at ran- 
dom from common blossoms. What inexplicable 
riddles to the botanist of a hundred years ago, 
even of sixty years ago ! For not until that time 
