Who painted the Flowers ? 4 1 



petals are large and conspicuous, so that the plant is 

 visited by numerous insects ; while in Malva rotundifolia 

 the flowers of which are coniparatively small and rarely 

 visited by insects, the branches of the stigma are elon- 

 gated and twine themselves among the stamens, so that 

 the flower can hardly fail to fertilize itself." 



Here, then, are two species which have both con- 

 trived to develop into mallowhood, which are constructed 

 so exactly alike that in any systematic catalogue they 

 must stand side by side, and yet which differ in the one 

 particular which we are told rules all development. 

 Insects have worked for generations at the one, and have 

 done nothing for the other, and yet they have both 

 arrived at the same point, and both agree exactly in their 

 complex generic peculiarities. 1 And here again it is not 

 in one or two individuals that this strange diversity and 

 stranger agreement are found. These two mallows are 

 each distributed over Europe, North Africa, Siberia, and 

 Western Asia, even as far as India. Such development 

 in all the varying circumstances of this area would 

 certainly seem to be beset by unsurmountable difficul- 

 ties. 



It seems, then, that our knowledge of the mystery of 

 flower life is still far from sufficient to justify us in under- 

 taking to explain the secrets of their inner history, and 

 that the explanation which we have seen offered is 

 insufficient. As already said, nothing is so dangerous as 

 to champion theories when they are but theories, and to 

 allow our natural sympathy for the offspring of our own 

 brain to mislead us as to facts. That our knowledge on 

 the subject of flowers is insufficient, Sir John Lubbock 

 appears in one chapter frankly to avow. He says : 



1 How complex these are may be judged from Sir J. Hooker's 

 description of the genus : " Leaves angled, lobed or cut. Flowers 

 axillary. Calyx 5"fid, 3-bracteolate. Staniinal column long, fila- 

 ments distinct at its top only. Ovary many-celled ; styles stigmatose 

 on the inner surface. Fruit a whorl of indehiscent i-celled carpels 

 separating from a short conical axis. Seed ascending, albumen 

 scantly mucilaginous '' (Stitdent's Flora, p. 75). 



