262 Flozucrs and their Pedigrees. 



fertilising the small green ovaries, the plant begins to 

 enter upon a fresh phase of existence. It has now 

 no further use for its hood and its purple-topped spike, 

 which have answered their purpose in attracting the 

 insects ; and therefore it gets rid of them in the same 

 summary way in which mankind generally get rid of 

 a faithful old horse, or a superannuated servant. The 

 hood withers slowly away ; the top of the spike, as 

 far down as the base of the cluster of stamens, grad- 

 ually decays ; and at last you find nothing left but a 

 bunch of rather shapeless green berries, elevated on a 

 stiff, fleshy stalk, and with a scar at their bottom in the 

 place where the hood used once to join on. 

 As summer wears away the berries grow 

 bigger and bigger, while at the same time 

 they become redder and redder. At last, 

 with the first approach of autumn, they ap- 

 pear as the bright cluster of coral-coloured 

 berries, represented at the side, with which we are all 

 so familiar in our September hedgerows. 



What is the use of this new manoeuvre ? Well, it 

 is not simply that common to most succulent fruits. 

 Each of these bright red berries incloses a single hard 

 nut-like seed. Its object is to attract the fruit-eating 

 birds, the field-mice, and the other small animals, to 

 eat it up whole. For this end, just as so many flowers 



