164 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



flowering of one " happens " to come to perfection just at 

 the same time as the other, and when the pistiliferous 

 blossom floats on the stream fastened to its long stem, 

 the stameniferous flower, developed in its obscure bed, 

 leaves the dark earth in which it has been preparing for 

 its aerial flight, and, rising from the main stem to the 

 surface, there just as a butterfly expands its glorious 

 wings to the sun when it emerges from its prison-house in 

 the chrysalis unfolding its petals, the stamens are visible, 

 and, wafted either by the wind or the air, or attracted by 

 some mysterious and unknown influence, it finds shall I 

 say ? the object of its search, and, as the poet would say, 

 after a loving embrace, it withers and dies. 



Now comes the second striking chapter in this romance 

 of vegetable life. The surviving plant, with the pollen 

 of its embrace, no longer remains on the surface. The long 

 spiral stalk, which has obtained for the plant an addition 

 to its name spiralis turned in one direction, upwards, 

 now takes a contrary direction, and, having no further 

 attraction there, again seeks its domain below ; and, the 

 long stalk gradually contracting, the blossom soon reaches 

 its bed in the bottom of the river, where its seed, made 

 fertile by its companionship above, strikes root, and a 

 new plant is produced.* Well may a devout naturalist 

 say, " We might challenge all botanical science to pro- 

 duce any series of phenomena so striking as this, or so 

 satisfactorily demonstrating the skill and foreknowledge 

 of the great Creator." f 



The nearest comparison is the pitcher-plant, or, 

 perhaps, several of the fly-catching plants ; but as I have 

 previously told you their story in another volume, I must 

 not repeat it here.f 



* See Frontispiece. t P- H. Gosse. 



\ See in " The Autobiography of an Acorn ; The Story of a Leaf.' " 



