Traces of Unity in Plants. 1 7 



taming fluid ; but in many instances the grains are 

 wanting, and the fluid which is the essential ingredient 

 exudes as a free liquid, which, as Goethe supposes, 

 may be nothing more than a modification of the juices 

 which appear as the honied or odorous secretions of the 

 nectaries or petals or leaves. 



The pistil too is often modified in such a way as to 

 make it certain that it has no claim to be looked upon 

 as an exceptional organ. In the crocus, for example, 

 the stigma, or upper extremity of the pistil, is green and 

 absolutely similar to the elements of the calyx ; and in 

 the double poppy the same part has the form of small 

 and delicately-coloured leaves, precisely similar to petals. 

 In the iris and ranunculus there is a true petaloid 

 transformation of the stigmata, and also of the styles, or 

 intermediate portion of the pistil, and, lastly, the ovary 

 itself, or the essential part of the pistil, is an altered 

 form of the same element. The leaf-nature of this part 

 is concealed, it is true, in fleshy and succulent, or in 

 woody and hard fruits, but even in these cases it cannot 

 escape detection, especially if the parts be traced through 

 the earlier stages of their history : or the real nature of 

 the ovary may be detected in cases where, as in the 

 common pink, it is no uncommon thing for the seed- 

 organs to be metamorphosed into a calyx the divisions 

 of which bear on their extremities the traces of the 

 former styles and stigmata, while at the same time new 

 flowers, of a more or less perfect character, are developed 

 in the place of seeds. 



And very certainly the ovule-producing faculty of 

 the ovary is not so distinctive a feature as it may seem 

 to be at first sight. The ovule is a germ closely akin to 

 the germs on the fronds of ferns, and to the buds on the 

 leaves of the Ruscus aculeatus, the Bryophyllum calyci- 



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