Masterpieces of Science 



selves and return to their primitive hue of leafy- 

 green. A month later we come upon a butter- 

 cup, one of whose sepals has grown out as a 

 small but perfect leaf. Later still in summer 

 we find a rose in the same surprising case, 

 while not far off is a columbine bearing pollen 

 on its spurs instead of its anthers. What family 

 tie is betrayed in all this ? No other than that 

 sepals, petals, anthers and pistils are but leaves 

 in disguise, and that we have detected nature 

 returning to the form from which ages ago she 

 began to transmute the parts of flowers in all 

 their teeming diversity. The leaf is the parent 

 not only of all these but of delicate tendrils, 

 which save a vine the cost of building a stem 

 stout enough to lift it to open air and sunshine. 

 However thoroughly, or however long, a habit 

 may be impressed upon a part of a plant, it may 

 on occasion relapse into a habit older still, 

 resume a shape all but forgotten, and thus tell 

 a story of its past that otherwise might remain 

 forever unsuspected. Thus it is with the some- 

 what rare "sport" that gives us a morning 

 glory or a harebell in its primitive form of 

 unjoined petals. The bell form of these and 

 similar flowers has established itself by being 

 much more effective than the original shape 

 in dusting insect servitors with pollen. Not only 

 the forms of flowers but their massing has been 

 determined by insect preferences; a wide pro- 

 fusion of blossoms grow in spikes, umbels, 

 racemes and other clusters, all economizing 

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