THE ORIGIN OF BUT1ERCUPS. IQI 



stuffs is keen, and the struggle for existence very 

 bitter. Hence they have been compelled to divide 

 their leaves into many finger-like segments ; and only 

 those which have succeeded in doing so have managed 

 to hold their own in the struggle, and so to hand down 

 their peculiarities to future generations. As a rule, 

 just in proportion as vegetation is thick and matted, 

 do the plants of which it is composed tend to develop 

 minutely divided and attenuated foliage. 



It is the flower, however, that most people think of 

 as the essential part of a buttercup, and it is by means 

 of the flower that all the higher plants are usually 

 ^classified. Now, the blossom of the buttercup is 

 almost an ideally simple typical specimen. It consists 

 of three parts or series of organs, from within outward. 

 First comes a little central boss or cushion, supporting 

 several carpels or unripe fruitlets. Each of these 

 carpels contains a single embryo seed. Outside these 

 comes a row of many stamens, which are the organs 

 for producing the yellow dust which we call pollen. 

 Now, no carpel can mature into a fruit containing 

 ripe seed until it has been impregnated by pollen from 

 a stamen; and these two sets of organs are, therefore, 

 the only really essential parts of the whole flower. 

 But in common language, what we mean by a flower 

 is not these little central knobs and tassels, but rather 

 the bright-coloured petals outside, which in the butter- 

 cup are five in number and golden yellow in. colour. 

 What, then, is the use to the plant of these expanded 

 and very strikingly-coloured organs ? 



