HOW PLANTS MABKY. 79 



plants the chapter which tells us how they 

 marry and are given in marriage. 



In order that you may fully understand this 

 curious and delightful subject, however, I shall 

 have to begin by telling you a few preliminary 

 points less interesting in themselves, and, I fear, 

 at times not a little troublesome. 



Flowers are the husbands and wives of plants. 

 And in some 

 plants the sexes 

 are as fully sepa- 

 rated as in birds 

 or beasts; when 

 once you know 

 them, you can 

 distinguish at 

 sight a male 

 from a female 



flower as readily ^ 



as you can dis- a ^PP ^ A 



tinguish a bull FIG - 13. A, MALE, & B, FEMALE FLOWER 



from a nnw nr OF A SEDGE M H MAGNIFIED. The 



om a cow, or gexes ftre here ite distinct and 

 a peacock irom unlike. 

 a peahen (Fig. 



13). But in other cases the sexes are muddled 

 up in the same blossom or on the same plant in 

 a way that makes it rather difficult to understand 

 their true nature without a little pains and some 

 close attention. 



So we must go back a bit for light to the 

 lower plants. Here we find no flowers at all, 

 and in the very lowest cases of any nothing in 

 the least resembling a blossom. Very simple 

 plants, in fact, have two ways of reproducing. 



