The Strange Story of the Flowers 



than its fellows, a few of the blossoms are 

 undersized and puny: the tide of life Hows high 

 and merrily in a fortunate rose or two, it seems 

 to ebb and falter by the time it reaches one or 

 two of their unhappy mates. As we search 

 bush after bush we are at last repaid for sundry 

 scratches from their thorns by securing a double 

 rose, a "sport," as the gardener would call it. 

 And in the broad meadow between us and home 

 we well know that for the quest we can have 

 not only four-leaved clovers, but perchance a 

 handful of five and six-leaved prizes. The secret 

 is out. Flowers and leaves are not cast like 

 bullets in rigid moulds, but differ from their 

 parents much as children do. Usually the differ- 

 ence is slight, at times it is as marked as in our 

 double rose. Whenever the change in a flower 

 is for the worse, as in the sickly violets and 

 roses we have observed, that particular change 

 ends there — with death. But when the change 

 makes a healthy flower a little more attractive 

 to its insect ministers, it will naturally be chosen 

 by them for service, and these choosings, kept 

 up year after year, and century upon century, 

 have at last accomplished much the same result 

 as if the moth, the bee, and the rest of them 

 had been given power to create blossoms of 

 the most welcome forms, the most alluring 

 tints, the most bewitching perfumes. 



In farther jaunts afield we shall discover yet 

 more. It is May, and a heavy rainstorm has 

 caused the petals of a trillium tu forget them- 

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