THE FLOWEK 



121 



than the plant itself. Here and there in Europe, the 

 travelling Australian can see a gum tree that recalls 

 his fatherland, but nothing that the eye can see can 

 take him back to his boyhood like a whiff of wattle 

 scent from a London or Paris flower shop.* Little 

 wonder that this invisible mysterious something that 

 we call scent is often called the soul of the plant. 

 How close the tie is between scent and plant is shown 

 by a very wonderful fact. When caught and bottled, 

 the perfume of a flower shows a strange excitement 

 when the time of the flowering of the plant comes 

 round. The scent becomes troubled and the frag- 

 rance stronger ! 



9. And now we must look carefully at the colour of 

 flowers, for this is the greatest debt that man owes to 

 the bees and butterflies and other insects that visit 

 flowers. 



10. The colour of flowers. In our scarlet 

 geranium we found that the large gay petals were due 

 to the visits of insects. We know from the fossil 

 flowers found in rocks that in far-past times, when 

 there were no insects, there were no petals. How, 

 then, were the petals made ? Pull off the petal of a 



monthly rose, one by 

 one. As you come near 

 to the centre you will 

 often find a petal that 

 is half petal and half 



Eose stamens changing into petals stamen, and when quite 

 as we pass from the centre of „i j.„ .i , 



the rose outwards. close to the Centre, you 



*A few gum trees from Australia are to be found here and there on 

 the coast of the Mediterranean ; and our silver wattle is now grown in the 

 Riviera. 



