9J< M\ STERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



pranks and capers and practical jokes of merry- 

 makers in carnival time. 



The perfect adjustment of the apparatus and its 

 unfailing operation fills us with astonishment, and 

 leads us to wonder if some superior intelligence, 

 some deus ex macJiina, dev^ised it, and created it 

 all out of the delicate and fragile material of which 

 all flowers are built. But as such speculations are 

 unscientific we must postpone them till such time 

 as we shall have fuller knowledge from which to 

 make deductions. 



ISIost of the floral mechanisms are economic de- 

 vices to save pollen and to make the most of the 

 precious stuff. The great pine-trees may scatter 

 their pollen by the bucketful upon the wind, and 

 the Indian corn may throw it away in wanton pro- 

 fusion, but the flowers seem to have learned to be 

 thrifty with theirs — at times even parsimonious. 



The bellflower, where the stamens fall away, 

 leaving the pollen clustering about the pistil, is a 

 little too lavish ; and its relatives, the lobelias, have 

 improved upon its ways. 



Pale Spiked Lobelia — Lobelia spicata 

 July- August 



This flower presents a decided improvement upon 

 the bellflower. The stamens similarly unite into 

 a tube around the undeveloped pistil, and shed and 



