Flower-shapes and their Causes. 7 



The part which hitherto has, in proportion to the 

 rest, heen most thoroughly studied is the significance of 

 the endless varieties of form presented by the flower ; 

 and the relations which exist between the parts of the 

 flower and the animals which visit it have been especial 

 objects of attention. In this inquiry there has been 

 indisputably no lack of one-sided views and erroneous 

 interpretations. With the common tendency of ex- 

 plorers to confine themselves to the path indicated by 

 some first successful experiments, men have tried to 

 explain everything they possibly can by the relation 

 between the shape of the flower and that of the animals 

 that visit it ; and, as was unavoidable, in so doing they 

 have often overshot the mark, and by their one-sided 

 mode of viewing the matter, have overlooked, entirely 

 or in part, other definite advantages not thus to be 

 explained. 



In my treatise on the means by which pollen is 

 protected from premature dispersal, and from wet, I 

 have pointed out a number of such errors, and have 

 shown that mapy peculiarities of shape presented by 

 flowers, which it was supposed were to be explained 

 only by reference to the visits of insects, are in reality, 

 either not at all or not exclusively concerned therewith. 

 It is manifest that those forms will be most likely to 

 be preserved, and those structures to be most frequently 

 developed, which combine a plurality of advantages ; 

 because thus the greatest possible results will be ob- 



