INTELLIGENCE OF FLOWERS 



the sun appears and evaporates the fluid and the unballasted 

 stamens dart upon the stigma. Elsewhere are different things 

 again: thus, in the Primroses, the females are by turns longer 

 and shorter than the males. In the Lily, the Tulip and other 

 flowers, the too-lanky bride does the best she can to gather 

 and fix the pollen. (But the most original and fantastic sys- 

 tem is that of the Rue {Ruta graveolens) , a rather evil-smell- 

 ing medicinal herb of the ill-famed emmenagogic tribe. The 

 peaceful and docile stamens, drawn up in a circle around the 

 fat, squat pistil, wait expectant in the yellow corolla. At the 

 conjugal hour, obeying the command of the female, which ap- 

 parently gives a sort of call by name, one of the males ap- 

 proaches and touches the stigma. Then come the third, the 

 fifth, the seventh, the ninth male, until the whole row of odd 

 numbers has rendered service. Next, in the even ranks, comes 

 the turn of the second, the fourth, the sixth and so on. This 

 is indeed love to order! This flower which knows how 

 to count appears to me so extraordinary that I at first re- 

 fused to believe the botanists ; and I was determined to test its 

 numerical sense more than once before accepting it. I 

 have ascertained positively that it but seldom makes a mis- 

 take. 



[49] 



