MORE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 125 



to dispense with all unnecessary pollen. The 

 ovary is also inferior, which you will learn in 

 time to recognise as a constant sign of high 

 development, because it means that the base of 

 the corolla and calyx have coalesced with the 

 carpels, and so ensured greater certainty of 

 fertilisation. Some simple members of the 

 iris group, like the crocuses, have mere tubular 

 flowers, with a very long funnel-like base to 

 the corolla, and with the ovary buried in the 

 ground for greater safety. They are early 

 spring blossoms, which need much protection 

 against cold; therefore they thus bury their ova- 

 ries, and sheathe their flower-buds in a papery 

 covering, composed of a thin and leathery leaf. 

 Whenever a sunny day comes in winter the 

 bees venture out ; and on all such days, even 

 though it freeze in the shade, the crocuses are 

 open in the sunshine to w^elcomc them. 



But other irises are more complicated, like 

 the gladiolus, and still more the garden irises, 

 in which the difference between the calyx and 

 corolla is carried to its furthest point in this 

 family. The sepals in true irises are large and 

 brilliantly coloured ; they hang over gracefully ; 

 the petals are smaller and erect; the stigmas 

 are so expanded as to look like petals ; and 

 they arch over the stamens in a most peculiar 

 manner. If you watch a bee visiting a garden 

 iris, you will see for yourself the use of this 

 most peculiar arrangement ; the bee lights on 

 the bending sepal, and inserts his head between 

 the stigma and the stamen in a way which 

 renders fertilisation simply inevitable. But the 



