THE WELCOMES OF THE FLOWERS 119 



unusual, forgetting that such a smile may partake 

 somewhat of irreverence. For what are they all 

 but the divinely imposed conditions of interasso- 

 ciation ? say, rather, interdependence, between the 

 flower and the insect, which is its ordained com- 

 panion, its faithful messenger, often its sole spon- 

 sor — the meadows murmuring with an intricate 

 and eloquent system of intercommunings beside 

 which the most inextricable tangle of metropoli- 

 tan electrical currents is not a circumstance. 

 What a storied fabric were this murmurous tan- 

 gle woven clay by day, could each one of these 

 insect messengers, like the spider, leave its visible 

 trail behind it ! 



As a rule, these blossom ceremonies are of the 

 briefest description. Occasionally, however, as in 

 the cypripedium and in certain of the arums, or 

 " jack-in-the-pulpit," and aristolochias, the welcome 

 becomes somewhat aggressive, the guest being 

 forcibly detained awhile after tea, or, as in the case 

 of our milkweed, occasionally entrapped for life. 



From this companionable point of view let us 

 now look again at the strange curved stamen of 

 the sage. Why this peculiar formation of the 

 long curved arm pivoted on its stalk? Consid- 

 ered in the abstract, it can have no possible mean- 

 ing; but taken in association with the insect to 



