MORPHOLOGY OF THE FLOWER. 77 



371. EXAMPLES. The tulip was originally yellow. All its numerous varieties 

 are of the xanthic series. So also the rose and Dahlia Florists have never yet ob- 

 tained a blue tulip, rose, or dahlia. The geranium varies throughout the cyanic 

 series, and a yellow geranium is unknown. Different species of the same genus 

 may belong to different series, so also different parts of the same flower. 



CHAPTER X. 



MORPHOLOGY OF THE FLOWER. 



372. THE FLOWER AS THE STANDARD OF BEAUTY. So it has ever been regarded. 

 Through this attribute, so evidently divine in its origin, it breathes on the heart an 

 influence which is essentially spiritual, always pleasing, elevating, and pure. The 

 benevolent Thought which first conceived of this crowning glory of the vegetable 

 world had evidently in view the education of man's moral nature as well as the 

 reproduction and permanence of vegetable nature. 



373. THE FLOWER IN THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE. The pleasure of the florist in 

 contemplating the flower as merely an object of taste is not diminished when he 

 comes to view it in the light of science. Parts which he before regarded as embel- 

 lishments only, now assume new value as indispensable agents in fulfilling a great 

 design ; every organ takes form according to the sphere of its office, and the beau- 

 fill flower no longer appears as the possible accident of a chance- world. 



374. ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. We have before observed that the 

 flower-bud is, in nature and origin, one and the same with the leaf-bud. 

 Now a leaf-bud is regularly unfolded into a- leafy branch. A flower- 

 bud is unfolded into a flower. Hence the flower, in its nature and 

 origin, is one and the same with a leafy branch. 



375. THEORETICAL VIEW. "When, therefore, this new necessity arises in the life 

 of a plant, viz., the perpetuation of its species, no new principle or organ is evoked, 

 but the leaf, that same protean form which we have already detected in shapes so 

 numerous and diverse, THE LEAF, is yet once more in nature's hand molded into a 

 series of forms of superior elegance, touched with colors more brilliant, and adapted 

 to a higher sphere as the organs of reproduction. 



376. THE EVIDENCE ON WHICH THIS THEORY RESTS may be referred to two 

 sources ; namely, natural and artificial development. "We mention a few instances 

 of each kind, earnestly recommending the student to study for himself the many 

 facts which will fall under his own observation bearing upon this deeply interesting 

 theory. 



377. CASE OF THE POPPY. The ordinary complete flower, e. g., the poppy, con- 

 sists of four kinds or sets of organs, viz., the sepals (outside), petals next, stamens 

 and pistils, and each kind is quite different and distinct from the others. The meta- 

 morphosis of the leaf, first into the sepal then the petal, etc., is so abrupt that it 

 seems to lose its identity at once. But there are some 



378. CASES IN THE NATURAL DEVELOPMENT OF PLANTS where T;he transition of 

 the leaf is gradual, changing insensibly, first to bracts then to sepals, thus appa- 

 rently making the metamorphosis in question, visible before our eyes. Such cases 



