ON VARIATION 



ment — what an infinite possibility of combinations 



this opens up! 



* * * « * 



Truly of a million geranium blossoms no two 

 could be exactly alike — nor any two of their five 

 million petals — nor any two of their ten million 

 stamens — nor any two of their hundred million 

 honey glands — nor any two of their billion pollen 



granules ! 



***** 



What we have seen in the geranium — those 

 seed-like eggs, the sticky stigma and that micro- 

 scopic pollen dust, we may see in some form or 

 other in everj' plant that grows. 



The act which we might have performed to 

 produce a new geranium plant — the combination 

 of one of those seeds with some of that pollen — 

 is going on about us always, everywhere — with the 

 bees, and the butterflies, and the birds, and the 

 winds, and a score of other agencies acting to 

 effect those combinations. 



Which is the reason for the candy factory at the 

 bottom of every geranium's little central well. And 

 for those brilliant petals, and that delicate scent, 

 and the picket arrangement of the stamen stalks, 

 and the crosswise poise of their pollen-bearing 

 anthers, and the central pistil stalk which rises 

 upward from the egg nest — and everything that is 



[77] 



