SEDGE AND WOODRUSH. 15 



amaryllis, not very striking to a careless 

 observer, but marvellously pretty and perfect 

 when you look attentively into the tiny 

 rosettes. And the history of these dry brown 

 flowers is in itself curious enough to make 

 them well worth a moment's examination. 

 For the w r oodrush is almost undoubtedly a 

 faded and colourless descendant of some 

 once coloured and brilliant ancestor. You 

 may be fairly sure of that from the mere look 

 of the dry brown petals. Every blossom 

 with petals, however small or green or incon- 

 spicuous, has once been a bright and flaunt- 

 ing flower ; for the sole object of petals is to 

 attract the eyes of insects, and they are 

 therefore found nowhere but among insect- 

 fertilised plants or their degenerate descend- 

 ants. Flowers which have always been 

 fertilised by the wind never have any petals 

 at all, brown, green, or otherwise ; but flowers 

 v which are fertilised by insects have them red, 

 white, blue, or yellow ; and flowers which 

 have once been so fertilised and have after- 



