March 24, 1882.] 



KNOW^LEDGE 



443 



AN iLL]AiiXR/\TEL; 



MAGAZINE OF^IENCE 



PLAINLTVfORDED -EXACmDESCRIBED 



LONDON: FRIDAY, .VARCn 2t, 



Contents op No. 21. 



PiOB ' 



The First Daffodil. Bv Grant Allen 413 

 A Study or Minute tife. No. II. 

 By Henry J. Slack, F.G.S., i 



F.B.M.3 4W , 



Nights with a Three-Inch Telescope. 

 By " A Fellow of the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society" ' -Mo 



Kotes on Boning. By an Old Club | 



Captain 1-16 



The Crystal Palace Electrical Exhi- 

 bition. Seventh Notice 4-17 



The Sreat Prramid. Br the Editor 148 



The Sadii-iay fi<Tici<-'» Comet 150 



Tricycles in 1S92. By John Browning 450 

 The Duchess of Coiinaught's Illuess 451 



PiOI 



The Path of Mars from 1S75 to 1877 452 

 Cbalccdonv Containing Liquid with 



a MoTablc Bubble. By the Rev. 



Henrv H. Higgins 454 



Modem" Dress -154 



Compound Pendulum. Illustrated. 4£5 

 CoBsBspOTfDBNCB :— Seeking after a 



sign— Cafs-eve Timepiece of the 



Chinese— Neolithic Man, &c. 456-453 

 " ■ 458 



Replies to Queries 



Answers to Correspondents 459 



Our Mathematical Column -160 



Our Che'iS Column 460 



Our Whist Column 462 



THE FIRST DAFFODIL. 



AFTER watching it closely for four or five days, I have 

 just found the first daffodil of the season wide open 

 this morning, with a big humble-bee buried deep in its 

 capacious throat, already rifling its little store of nectar, 

 and dusting his body and legs with pollen which he will 

 promptly carry away to fertilise one of its pretty sisters 

 in some neighbouring garden. Though I have watched 

 it like a child, I could not resist the childish temptation 

 of picking it, and I have got it here before nie now for 

 dissection, poor thing, with my little pocket-knife, though 

 it does not need much of a magnifying power to see aU 

 that need be seen of its structural arrangements. It is 

 only a common wild English daftbdil : the " daffy-do wn- 

 dilly who came up to town in a yellow petticoat and a 

 green gown," as the old nursery rhyme has it ; and it has 

 been simply transplanted hither from the meadow beyond 

 the bourne ; but it is as gay and bright a blossom as one 

 could wish to see, for all that, besides being full of genuine 

 scientific interest for those who care to look at it aright. 

 Let me cut it straight down through the middle, so, and 

 then you will understand better what it is driving at. 



You see, the flower consists of a single amalgamated 

 tube, with six lobes or points, and in between them, pro- 

 jecting from its centre, is a large circular crown, Ijroadly 

 tubular in shape, and brightly yellow, like the rest of the 

 blossom, in colour. It is well to begin at the beginning; and 

 SO we may first ask why it is six-lobed 1 The answer is, 

 because it is one of the monocotyledonous plants. That is 

 a very long and technical word — I am half afraid our 

 English-speaking editor will cut it ruthlessly out — and, 

 indeed, I wish it were shoi-ter and simpler ; but at present, 

 Onhappily, I know of no other that will efficiently supply 

 its place. Let me try to explain it. Many years ago, 

 when flowering plants first appeared upon the earth, they 

 began to diverge into two principal divisions, from one or 

 other of which all our existing flowering kinds (except only 

 the cone-bearing pine family) arc ultimately descended. 

 One of these primitive groups had two seed-leaves in each 



seed, the other had one. There are a great many other dif- 

 ferences between the two tribes, but these are tlio most 

 constant ; and it is to tlie last tribe that the datlLdil 

 belongs. Now, so far as the flower is concerned (and it is 

 with that part of the plant alone that I am going to deal 

 to-day), the widest original diflercnce between the two great 

 di\-isions was this — the plants with two seed-leaves had their 

 parts arranged in whorls of five, while the plants with one 

 seed-leaf had them arranged in whorls of tliree. Thus the 

 typical flower of the first class has five sepals, five petals, 

 five stamens, and so forth ; while the typical flower of the 

 second class has only three of each. In the course of time, 

 however, this original difference has become greatly 

 masked ; for many flowers of the first kind have lost one 

 or two of their petals or stamens, by coalescence or other- 

 wise ; while many flowers of tlie second class have doubled 

 their numbers in one part or another. Nevertheless, in 

 most cases, we can even now trace, in some way or other, 

 the steps which connect the existing form with its primi- 

 tive ancestor ; and it is still true that the two types are 

 broadly marked ort" from one another, as the iive-i-ayed and 

 the three-rayed forms respectively. 



Now, the daftbdil is a very advanced and liighly-modified 

 development of the three-rayed type. The artificial family 

 to which it belongs in the present somewhat irrational 

 arrangement of flowers is that of the arnaryllis kind ; but 

 we shall understand it better if we look first at its near 

 neighbours of another family, the iris and crocus group. 

 These plants in some of their modifications, such as the 

 common yellow flag, are very simply three-fold in their 

 ground-plan. There are three seed-cells to the pistil in the 

 centre ; then there are three stamens outside them ; next, 

 there are three petals ; and, last of all, there are three 

 large spreading sepals in the outermost whorl. But in the 

 crocus, the three petals and three sepals are indistinguish- 

 able, and have coalesced into a single tube, so that the 

 flower seems to have a united corolla of six lobes. Now, 

 in the arnaryllis family, to which the daftbdil belongs, we 

 get the same sort of tendency carried a little further. 

 Instead of having only one row of three stamens, the mem- 

 bers of this group have two rows, thus making a total of si.x — 

 for, though no mathematician, I will fearlessly venture upon 

 so much arithmetic as that. In the simpler amaryllids, 

 such as the snowdrop, the confusion goes no further than 

 this single step ; and we get, first, a three-celled pistil in 

 the centre ; next, six stamens in two rows outside it ; then 

 three small green-veined petals; and last of all, three large 

 pure white sepals. Here the original three-fold symmetry 

 is hardly at all masked by the occurrence of a double set 

 of stamens ; while the petals and sepals are quite separate 

 down to their very base, without any sign of union or 

 coalescence. I don't say they never have been united : 

 indeed, I have certain grave doubts of my own upon that 

 head, connected with what botanists call their inferior 

 ovary ; but I'm not going to mention that point to-day, 

 lest I should tell you too much about them all at once, and 

 so spin out my paper to an unconscionable length. For 

 the present, it must sufiice to notice that we still possess 

 amaryllid flowers in which the primitive arrangement Viy 

 threes is even now distinctly visible. 



The daftbdil, however, has got beyond this early stage, 

 and has undergone so very much modification that its 

 primitive aspect is almost entirely masked by its acquired 

 traits. When I slice across its ovary, or embryo fi-uit, it is 

 true, I can see that it still consists of three cells, produced 

 by the union of the three originally separate pieces ; but 

 with this exception, all its parts now appear to be in sixes 

 rather than in threes. There are six pollen-bejiring stamens, 

 produced by doubling the original three ; and there are six 



