204 EYE SPY 



was their significance fully understood ; and yet 

 each of these presents but one of several equally 

 puzzling features in the same flowers from which 

 they were taken. 



In that first anther, for example, why those 

 pores at the tip of the cells, instead of the usual 

 slits at the sides, and why that pair of horns at 

 the back ? And the next one, with longer tubes, 

 and the same two horns besides ! Then there is 

 that queer specimen with flapping ears — one of 

 six from the barberry blossom ; and the pointed, 

 arrow-headed individual with a long plume from 

 its apex; and the curved C- shaped specimen — 

 one of a pair of twins which hide beneath the 

 hood of the sage blossom. The lily anther, which 

 comes last, is poised in the centre. Why.^^ What 

 puzzles to the mere botanist! for it is because 

 these eminent scholars were mere botanists — stu- 

 dents and chroniclers of the structural facts of 

 flowers — that this revelation of the truth about 

 these blossom features was withheld from them. 

 It was not until they had become philosophers 

 and true seers, not until they sought the divine 

 significance, the reason, which lay behind or be- 

 neath these facts, that the flowers disclosed their 

 mysteries to them. 



Look at that random row of petals, too ! — one 

 with a peacock's eye, two others with dark spots, 

 and next the queer-fingered petal of the migno- 



