94 



THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



yellow sepals. Moreover, as the marsh-marigold 

 is such a large and handsome flower, it easily at- 

 tracts insects in early spring ; and this has enabled 

 it to effect an economy in the matter of its carpels 

 or female organs. In the buttercups, we saw, 

 these w^ere very numerous, and each contained 

 only one seed; in the marsh-marigold, on the 

 other hand, they are reduced to five or ten, but 

 each contains a large number of seeds. This 

 arrangement enables a few acts of fertilisation 

 to suffice for the whole flower. You will there- 

 fore find as a rule that advanced types of flowers 

 have very few carpels — sometimes only one — and 

 that when they are more numerous they are often 

 combined into a single ovary, with one sensitive 

 surface, so that one fertilisation is enough for the 

 whole of them. 



Three familiar but highly-advanced members 

 of the buttercup group will serve to show the im- 

 mense changes effected in this respect by special 

 insect fertilisation. They are the columbine, the 

 larkspur, and the monkshood. In the simple but- 

 tercups, the honey, we saw, was easily acces- 

 sible to many small insects; but in the winter 

 aconite it was made more secure by being kept, 

 as it were, in a sort of deep jar ; and in these high- 

 est of the family it is still further hidden away, in 

 special nooks and recesses, like vases or pitchers, 

 so as to be only procurable by bees and butter- 

 flies. These higher insects, on the other hand, 

 are the safest fertilisers, because they have legs 

 and a proboscis exactly adapted to the work they 

 are meant for; and they have also as a rule a 

 taste for red, blue, and purple flowers, rather 

 than for simple white or yellow ones. Hence 

 txie blossoms that specially lay themselves out 



