40 Who painted the Flowers ? 



without allowing the reality of an energetic law which 

 would put accident out of the question. Take, for 

 example, so familiar a weed as the common Dandelion. 1 

 This is a composite flower, and as such must have been 

 much developed. Its individuals, as in the case of all 

 species, agree one with another in a number of most 

 delicate particulars, as all may see by reading the 

 description I append. 2 Is it to be said that all the 

 Dandelions now growing are descended from one original 

 that had changed into the present form ? If so, the 

 difficulty is practically as great as under the non-develop- 

 ment supposition. If not, if different lines of individuals 

 have all developed into agreement in all these particulars 

 the difficulty seems much greater : and greatest of all 

 on the insect theory. The Dandelion has an enormous 

 geographical range : it is found in the Arctic regions, in 

 all north temperate regions, and, moreover, in the 

 temperate regions of the southern hemisphere. The 

 insect visitors in Greenland, in China, in Italy, and in 

 Patagonia can hardly be alike ; how, then, is there such 

 complete, I will not say similarity, but identity of result ? 

 How indeed, except by allowing that the insects were, 

 at the very most, but instruments, and that the 

 Dandelion, as we see it, was designed from the be- 

 ginning ? 



Another remarkable point in the same connexion is, 

 that flowers nearly allied often differ very much in some 

 one particular. Thus Sir J. Lubbock tells us, 3 with 

 regard to *wo equally common species of Mallow : " In 

 Malva sylvestris, where the branches of the stigma are 

 so arranged that the plant cannot fertilize itself, the 



1 Taraxacum ojficinale. 



2 " Glabrous, or cottony at the crown and involucre. Root long, 

 stout, black. Leaves oblong obovate or spathulate, lobes usually 

 toothed. Scapes one or more, ascending or erect. Head J-2 in. 

 broad, bud erect ; involucre campanulate, outer bracts more or less 

 recurved, inner erect. Corollas bright yellow, outer often brown on 

 the back. Fruit brown, with a beak of equal length" (Sir J. 

 Hooker, Student's Flora, ed. 3, p. 240). 



