186 MYSTERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



you will discover resource 

 flowers like those of the 

 violet. You will find them 

 on the Polygala, jewel- 

 weed, wood - sorrel, wild 

 bean, frost-weed, Venus's 

 looking-glass, and Whitlow 

 grass. But all the cleistog- 

 amous flowers are not sub- 

 terranean. 



The Dalhardia is said to 

 fertilise itself in the bud 

 before opening. 



Near my gate, under 

 the beech-trees, is a patch 

 of the beech-drops, bearing short spikes of flowers 

 that bloom and make no seeds. Below them are 

 numerous closed and altogether ugly flowers which 

 make the seeds. Why the pretty ones should be 

 idle, and the plain ones do all the work, I cannot 

 tell, but philosophers in human affairs have often 

 asked the same question. 



POLYGALA 



In the foregoing pages we have so fully investi- 

 gated the mechanism of the flowers, and learned 

 so many of their ways and means for interchang- 



