122 FIliST HTUDIES IN. PLANT LIFE 



may iind a stamen that is just beginning to be a petal. 

 You can often find the same thing in many other flowers 

 that have become double in the garden. ^Ve know, too, 

 how single flowers can be made doul)le by the 

 gardener, and how he can make the petals larger 

 and richer in colour. We guess from all this that the 

 visits of insects have caused stamens to broaden 

 into petals, and petals to become gay in colour. 

 When a double flower is neglected, the petals often 

 change again into stamens. Indeed, if you sow 

 the seed from a garden rose, you will often get a 

 rosebush bearing single flowers like the hedge rose. 

 Now. since yellow is the colour of pollen and of 

 many stamens, we are not surprised to find that many 

 of the simplest and oldest flowers are yellow. If you 

 take a walk in the fields on a spring day and watch 

 the colours of the flowers, I think that you will find 

 that yellow is more common than any other colour. 



11. Pink seems to be the next most common colour, 

 and then come the rarer purples and blues.* 

 Many of the highest flowers — the flowers that have 

 been shaped specially for the bees — are blue. Simple, 

 regular flowers, like the poppy or the buttercup, are 

 rarely blue. The rose is a simple regular flower, as 

 you may see by looking at a hedge rose. Can you 

 find a blue rose ? The portulaca is a simple regular 

 flower; can you find a blue one? Almost any flower 

 may have a white variety. You will notice, too, 

 that when a flower, like chickweed, learns to make 

 seed without insect help, it often becomes white or 

 pale-coloured. 



♦Of 27 flowers collected on Mt. Kosciusko by Mr Maiden, of Sydney, 19 

 were yellow, 7 pink and only 1 was bine. 



