8o JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



in particular, which was set on foot about the close of the last 

 century by Sprengel, has been introduced with new force in our own 

 times. The results of observations in this direction can be best 

 understood by reading such books as Darwin on orchids and those 

 on cross fertilization. Some of them, I think, are now in our Free 

 Library. Since his time, recent as it is, many have followed up the 

 subject, and Lubbock, Miiller and others have added much to our 

 stock of knowledge, so that the study may now be made as fascina- 

 ting as the reading of a first-class novel, and much more real, 

 because more true. 



The fact is, I think the clue has now been found to all the 

 main avenues of the science, and even the keys of its lesser inner 

 rooms are, for the most part, well within the reach of any enlighten- 

 ed observer. 



I want specially to-night to call attention to the arrangement for 

 cross-fertilization in one or two plants with which I am familiar, for 

 to speak of the various modes and arrangements plants have for 

 accompUshing this would fill volumes ; it is one of the most inter- 

 esting parts of botanical study. 



Time would fail to tell of the sedges so inconspicuous to the 

 ordinary observer, and yet so full of entrancing wonderment on close 

 examination, in this matter of ensuring cross-fertilization: of the night- 

 blooming plants, which depend on moth fertilization, being nearly 

 always white or pale yellow — good reflectors in the twilight or 

 moonlight — and fragrant, as the moth hunts by smell chiefly, though 

 partly guided by sight ; and many others. 



Emerson tells us in his " Life of Thoreau " that he was out one 

 day for a walk with him when he (Thoreau) was looking for the 

 " Menyanthes trifoliata " (Buckbean), a sweetly scented bog plant. 

 He detected it across the wide pool, and on examination of its 

 florets, decided that it had been in flower five days. He then tells 

 us that he drew out of his pocket his diary and read the names of 

 all the plants that should bloom on this day, whereof he kept 

 account as a banker when his notes fall due. " The Cypri- 

 pedium not due till to morrow," he added. That would mean 

 about the 20th May, near Concord, Mass., where Thoreau lived ; 

 here it would be about a month later, and in the north where I first 



