io6 Flowers and their Pedigrees, 



donous division of flowering plants. When this sprig 

 of goose-grass first appeared above the ground, it pro- 

 bably represented that typical ancestor almost to the 

 life ; fc^r it had then only the two rounded leaves you 

 see at its base, and none of these six-rowed upper 

 whorls, which are so strikingly different from them. 

 Now, how did the upper whorls get there ? Why, of 

 course they grew, you say, Ves, no doubt, but w hat 

 made them grow .' Well, the first pair of leave.i grew 

 out of the seed, where the mother plant had laid by a 

 little store of albumen on purpose to feed them, exactly 

 as a reserve of food materials is laid b\' in the q^^ 

 of a hen to feed the growing chick. Under the 

 influence of heat and moisture the seed began to 

 germinate, as we call it — that is to say, oxygen began 

 to combine with its food stuffs, and motion or sprout- 

 ing was the natural result. This motion takes in each 

 plant a determinate course, dependent upon the inti- 

 mate molecular structure of the seed itself ; and so 

 each seed reproduces a plant exactly like the parent, 

 bar those small individual variations which are the 

 ultimate basis of new species — the groundwork upon 

 which natural selection incessantly works. In the case 

 of this goose-grass seed the first thing to appear was 

 the pair of little oval leaves ; and, as the small store of 

 albumen laid by in the seed was all used up in pro- 



