248 Form and Color in Nature. 



these are occasionally found below the surface of the soil. 

 Some other plants produce seeds under ground without 

 opening flowers. A most curious case of quite a different char- 

 acter is the common ground-nut or peanut, dear to the gallery 

 gods, which forms a yellow flower in the axil of the leaf, 

 and the stigma, then lengthening into a tendril-like form, 

 buries itself in the ground and develops the fruit at its ex- 

 tremity. A bud which never becomes a flower is the bulb- 

 let which forms itself in the axil of the leaf of the tiger-lily 

 and then becomes detached, ready to produce a new plant. 



The ordinary color of vegetables is green, with more or 

 less tendency toward yellow, though many plants sometimes 

 show red or some other color at certain points. In the or- 

 dinary processes of vegetation carbon is absorbed and oxygen 

 is given out. "When for any cause this process is reversed, 

 it is held by some authorities to be proved that there is a 

 tendency to the production of other colors. Such is the 

 condition in the process of flowering and fruiting. 



The original flower was probably minute, and consisted 

 of the representatives of the male and female elements 

 alone. Instances of this kind are now to be found. The 

 first variation of color was probably to yellow. Supposing 

 that vigor was the result of cross-fertilization, those plants 

 which varied so as to make cross-fertilization probable were 

 most likely to gain a strong foothold. The earliest method 

 of cross-fertilization seems to have been by means of the 

 wind, and so we find a large class of plants, many of them 

 with greenish or yellowish blossoms, individually incon- 

 spicuous, but frequently collected in numbers in aments or 

 catkins, the anthers hanging loosely and scattering a shower 

 of pollen on the air. The risk of loss by this process is so 

 great that a prodigious waste must be suffered in order to 

 insure success in effecting the object. The crowded grasses 

 are of this class, but there are also many large trees which 

 bear their blossoms high in the air where the wind may 

 have free access to them, and these frequently tint the 

 ground around them with their pollen. This, however, is 

 a very expensive way of providing for fertilization. An 

 animate helper with a brain, or its equivalent, is more eco- 

 nomical than the inanimate wind, and so it happens that 

 the insect world was brought into relation of interdepend- 

 ence with the vegetable world, to the wonderful transforma- 

 tion of both. In all probability the beginning of this pro- 

 cess was of the simplest character. Some one plant, or some 



