CHAPTER II. 

 WHA T MAY BE SEEN ON THE EARTH. 



" Now the shining meads 

 Do boast the pansy, lily, and the rose, 

 And every flower doth laugh as zephyr blows." 



BEN JONSON. 



HE Flower seems to have been created expressly 

 to say to men : " Listen ! Those things which 

 most attract your glance are but subordinate, 

 and the principal escape you." 



That the warning is true, all history attests. It is 

 only, so to speak, from yesterday that the discovery of 

 the sex of plants is to be dated ; the tiny organs occu- 

 pying the centre of the flower having always appeared so 

 insignificant that they had passed, for some thousands of 

 years, completely unnoticed. The eye of the spectator 

 was caught by the calyx and the corolla ; these en- 

 velopes, though of secondary importance so far as the 

 reproduction of the vegetable is concerned, seemed 



