NEWS OF SPRING 



these problems thoroughly to the works of Christian Konrad 

 Sprengel, who was the first, in 1793, in his curious volume, 

 Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Be- 

 fruchtung der Blumen, to analyze the functions of the different 

 organs in Orchids; next, to the books of Charles Darwin, Dr. 

 Hermann Miiller of Lippstadt, Hildebrand, Delpino the 

 Italian, Sir William Hooker, Robert Brown and many others. 

 We shall find the most perfect and the most harmonious 

 manifestations of vegetable intelligence among the Orchids. 

 In these contorted and eccentric flowers, the genius of the 

 plant reaches its extreme limits and, with unwonted fire, 

 pierces the wall that separates the kingdoms. For that mat- 

 ter, this name of Orchid must not be allowed to mislead us 

 or make us believe that we have here to do only with rare and 

 precious flowers, with those hothouse queens which seem to 

 claim the care of the goldsmith rather than the gardener. 

 Our native wild flora, which comprises all our modest 

 ^Veeds," numbers more than twenty-five species of Orchids, 

 including just the most ingenious and complex. It is these 

 which Darwin has studied in his book. On the Various Con- 

 trivances by which Orchids are fertilized by Insects, which 

 is the wonderful history of the most heroic efforts of the soul 



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