THALICTRUM DIOICUM. EARLY MEADOW-RUE. 47 



considered stipules by botanists, but are called " dilated petioles." 

 They, however, serve the same purposes as true stipules, and 

 when structural botany shall have been more closely investigated, 

 they may be found to have a similar origin. In our Early 

 Meadow-Rue this spreading out of the base is beautifully illus- 

 trated, extending as it does all around, and giving the stem the 

 appearance of having grown through it. Another interesting 

 lesson is derived from watching the development of the flowers 

 up from the leaves through all their stages, and the comparison 

 of the facts as they appear separately in the male and female 

 stalks. Taking our female illustration (Fig. i), we see that the 

 slender stem bearing the panicle of flowers is but a continuation 

 of the main stalk. If it had been stronger, the branchlets of the 

 panicle, instead of being flowers, would have been leaves or 

 branchlets. A sudden retardation of growth has made flowers 

 of what would otherwise have been leaves. In the lower branch- 

 let, indeed, we see a small leaflet, the arrestation not having 

 been quick enough to make a flower of it. This affords a good 

 illustration of the morphological law, — that the parts of the 

 inflorescence are only leaves and branches modified. But there 

 is still another lesson taught here. By turning to the male 

 flowers (Fig. 2) we see a much greater number of bracts or 

 small leaves scattered through the panicle, and find the pedicels 

 longer than in the female ; and this shows a much slighter effort 

 — a less expenditure of force — to be required in forming male 

 than female flowers. A male flower, as we see clearly here, is 

 an intermediate stage between a perfect leaf and a perfect, or we 

 may say, a female flower. It seems as if there might be as 

 much truth as poetry in the expression of Burns, — 



" Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, 

 An' then she made the lasses, O," 



at least in so far as the flowers are concerned, and in the sense 

 of a higher effort of vital power. 



