CHAPTEE V. 



THE STRUCTURE OF FLOWERS. 



THOUGH a flower, like a sea-shell, seems one of the 

 simplest things in nature, there are few objects that, 

 narrowly looked at, prove to be organized more elab- 

 orately. To produce the flower, is the aim and effort 

 of all the vital energies of the plant, from the moment 

 when it first creeps out of the earth as a tiny seedling. 

 For the sake of the flower the roots take up nourish- 

 ment from the soil, and the leaves, that wonderful 

 and invisible food with which the atmosphere is 

 charged on their behalf. For the sake of the flow- 

 er the plant struggles with the asperities of the 

 winter, and responds, in the unspoken gratitude of a 

 beautiful life, to the sweet influences and sympathies 

 of the summer. All its energies and activities have 

 relation to the flower as their final issue, and well 

 may the petals be so lustrous, the odor so ravishing 

 and balmy. 



The root, the stem and branches, and the foliage or 

 leaves of a plant, are concerned solely in the nutrition 

 of the individual ; they prepare and consolidate the 

 material of which the general fabric is composed ; 



