106 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



sidered as mere caprices and grotesques were now 

 shown to be eloquent of deep divine intention, 

 their curious shapes a demonstrated expression of 

 welcome and hospitality to certain insect coun- 

 terparts upon whom their very perpetuation de- 

 pended. 



Thus primarily identified with the orchid, it 

 was perhaps natural and excusable that popular 

 prejudice should have associated the subject of 

 cross-fertilization with the orchid alone ; for it is 

 even to-day apparently a surprise to the average 

 mind that almost any casual wild flower will re- 

 veal a floral mechanism often quite as astonishing 

 as those of the orchids described in Darwin's vol- 

 ume. Let us glance, for instance, at the row of 

 stamens below (Fig. i), selected at random from 

 different flowers, with one exception wild flowers. 

 Almost everybody knows that the function of the 

 stamen is the secretion of pollen. This function, 

 however, has really no reference whatever to the 

 external form of the stamen. Why, then, this re- 



