Cuckoo-Pint, 



239 



Secondly, we must ask what was the course of evolu- 

 tion by which they each assumed those peculiar forms. 

 And thirdly, we must inquire what good purpose in 

 the economy of the plant is subserved by each part in 

 the existing cuckoo-pints as we now find them. We 

 shall thus have learnt, at last, what a 

 cuckoo-pint is, how it came to be so, 

 and why its various portions have been 

 brought to assume their present forms. 



Beginning, then, with the purely 

 structural or positive arrangement of the 

 cuckoo-pint as we find it in nature at 

 the present day, we see at once that 

 its blossom consists mainly of a large 

 greenish-purple sheath or hood, at the 

 top of a long stalk, inclosing a tall 

 fleshy spike or club, shaped something 

 like a mace, and protruding from the 

 hood in front, so as to show its 

 coloured and expanded summit above 

 the point of junction of the two lips. Spadix of Arum. 

 That is all that one can see of the blossom from 

 the outside ; but in reality these two conspicuous 

 organs form no part of the actual and genuine 

 flowers themselves at all. They are merely inci- 

 dental accessories, put there for an excellent pur- 



FlG. 



