io8 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



staj^cs arc all suppressed. This is not always the 

 case : there are many plants which begin with a 

 simple tyixr of leaf, and j;ratlualiy j)n)gress to a com- 

 plex one by many small steps ; just as the tadpole 

 j;rows slowl)' to be a froi; by budding out first one 

 pair of legs and then another, and next losing his 

 tail and his gills, and finally emerging on dry land a 

 full-fledged amphibian. The goose-grass, however, 

 rather resembles the butterfly, which passes at once 

 from the creeping caterpillar to the complete winged 

 form, all the intermediate stciges being compressed 

 into the short chrysalis jx^riod ; only our plant has 

 not even a chr) salis shape to pass through. It is in 

 reality a verj- advanced and specially develoixid t}'pe 

 — the analogue, if not of man among the animals, at 

 least of a highl}' respectable cliimpanzee or intelligent 

 gorilla — and so it has learnt at last to pass straight 

 from its embryo state as a two-leaved plantlet to its 

 typical adult form as a trailing, whorled, and prickly 

 creeper. 



And now let us next look at this adult form it.sclf 

 Here I have cut a little bit of it for you with my 

 penknife, and, if you like, I will lend you my pocket 

 lens to magnify it slightly. The fragment I have 

 cut for you consists of a single half-inch of the stem, 

 with one whorl of six long pointed leaves. Vou will 



