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fertilized and so have no need to attract insects ; on the 

 contrary, they do everything in their power to keep them 

 carefully away, for the flies would only eat the pollen 

 without doing any good to the plant in return. Now let 

 me take one little separate spikelet of flowers from the 

 head, and dissect it more carefully. Outside come two 

 empty pieces of chaff, mere bracts or scales, meant to 

 protect the flowers from intrusive ants or other creeping 

 insects. Then, within these protective shields come the 

 real flowers, each consisting of two somewhat similar bits 

 of chaff glumes we call them inclosing three waving 

 stamens and a tiny embryo grain. Not much like a lily 

 or wild hyacinth at first sight, and yet the self -same plan 

 is traceable all through them. The ancestors of the 

 grasses started by being a sort of lilies, each with three 

 calyx pieces, three petals, three stamens, and three cells 

 to their fruit ; what has become of all these parts in the 

 meadow brome ? Well, they are almost all there, if one 

 looks close enough to see them. 



First there is the calyx : that is represented by the 

 two inner chaff-like glumes. Once upon a time there 

 were three of these, and there are still rudiments of the 

 three left ; for the innermost of the two glumes is really 

 a couple rolled into one, and has two little green midribs, 

 one on each side, as you see, still marking the true facts 

 as to its origin. In order to pack them away more neatly 

 on the branch, however, the one large outer calyx-piece 

 overwraps the two small and united inner ones, so that 

 to a casual glance they look like a pair of equal and op- 

 posite scales. That satisfactorily accounts for the calyx. 



Next, how about the petals ? Well, if you lift off 

 the two glumes very carefully, you will see beneath them, 

 just outside the stamens and the embryo grain, a couple 

 of very tiny thin transparent leaves. They are almost 



