Flowers and Insects. 77 



The flowering plant corresponds to the higher 

 animals ; its reproductive material is enclosed 

 and cherished; its seeds and sperm-cells develop 

 under delicate protecting wrappings, and are not 

 exposed as are the unprotected fern-spores. 



And all this care of the seeds and forming of 

 them, is accomplished in the cleverest way by the 

 plant, no distinctly new tissues being elaborated 

 for this important office. 



It was Goethe, the poet, who first established 

 the flower-leaf identity, and now every one knows 

 the beautiful and poetic truth that flowers are only 

 modified — why not say glorified ? — leaves. 



Nature has a way of her own of economizing 

 material, and has exercised a delightful ingenuity 

 in the uses to which she has put her leaves, some- 

 times compressing them into thorns or scales, again 

 expanding them into petals, or rolling them into 

 pistils and stamens. 



Originally composed of but stem and leaf, the 

 plant successfully achieves all of its wonderful 

 organs from the manipulation of these two primi- 

 tive parts. 



Rising through rank upon rank of green leaves 

 the. lily ends in a burst of poetry. The green 

 leaves are transformed by love, — the pupa be- 

 comes the imago. 



Instead of continuing to produce scattered leaves 

 along a lengthening stalk, the. leaf material is con- 

 gregated together in close ranks, some spirit of 



