88 NATURE STUDIES. 



of three cells, produced by the union of the three 

 originally separate pieces j but with this exception, 

 all its parts now appear to be in sixes rather than in 

 threes. There are six pollen-bearing stamens, pro- 

 duced by doubling the original three ; and there are 

 six lobes to the corolla, produced by the coalescence 

 of the three petals with the three sepals, so as to form 

 a single united tube. The object of this coalescence 

 is easy enough to understand. As in the harebell, 

 the daisy, and so many other flowers, it has been 

 effected by the selective agency of humble-bees and 

 other insects, like the one whom I found buried sa 

 deeply in its throat this morning. The tubular form,, 

 with its stamens hanging out from the side, ensures 

 the fertilisation of the flower much better than the 

 system of open petals; and so it has been brought 

 about by the fact that any variation in that direction 

 was unconsciously favoured by the insects, while 

 variations the other way were universally neglected. 

 But while many other plants have hit upon this same 

 device of coalescence, few have carried it so far as 

 the daffodil. In the first place, the tube in the five- 

 rayed flowers is formed out of the petals alone ; but in 

 the three-rayed flowers, the petals are too few in 

 number to make a sufficiently wide tube, and so the- 

 sepals or calyx-pieces are joined with them in pro- 

 ducing the desired result. Thus we can trace a 

 gradual progress from flowers like the iris and snow- 

 drop, where the sepals are distinctly different from 

 the petals, through flowers like the wild hyacinth,, 



