60 COLIN CLOUTS CALENDAR. 



is necessarily always upward. On the whole, there is 

 continuous progress ; but there is much retrogression, 

 too, in particular cases. I take a head of meadow brome, 

 and pull its panicle to pieces. It is made up of several 

 little flowering branches, each covered with tiny green 

 or brownish flowers. Why green ? Because the grasses 

 are wind- fertilised and so have no need to attract in- 

 sects ; on the contrary, they do everything in their power 

 to keep them carefully away, for the flies would only eat 

 the pollen without doing any good to the plant in return. 

 Now let me take one little separate spikelet of flowers 

 from the head, and dissect it more carefully. Outside 

 come two empty pieces of chaff, mere bracts or scales, 

 meant to protect the flowers from intrusive ants or other 

 creeping insects. Then, within these protective shields 

 come the real flowers, each consisting of two somewhat 

 similar bits of chaff glumes we call them enclosing 

 three waving stamens and a tiny embryo grain. Not 

 much like a lily or wild hyacinth at first sight, and yet 

 the selfsame plan is traceable all through them. The 

 ancestors of the grasses started by being a sort of lilies, 

 each with three calyx pieces, three petals, three stamens, 

 and three cells to their fruit ; what has become of all 

 these parts in the meadow brome ? Well, they are 

 almost all there, if one looks close enough to see them. 



First there is the calyx : that is represented by the 

 two inner chafPlike glumes. Once upon a time there 

 were three of these, and there are still rudiments of the 

 three left ; for the innermost of the two glumes is really 

 a couple rolled into one, and has two little green midribs, 

 one on each side, as you see, still marking the true facts 

 as to its origin. Tn order to pack them away more 



