78 Life and Love. 



beauty rests upon it and refines and glorifies, so 

 there unfolds in splendor the broad banners of 

 snowy white, of glowing gold or crimson. 



Nor is this all, — nor the prime cause of the 

 transformation. 



The gorgeous wings of this imago are but the 

 outbreak of the love that animates it, and sur- 

 rounded and protected by the shining robe are 

 other leaves yet more curiously modified, and on 

 whose account all this beauty exists. 



Standing within the bright petals are yet more 



delicate leaf transformations ; these are the stamens 



composed of filaments, tipped with anthers, 



— each anther a tiny box, as though the 



blade of a very little leaf had been rolled in 



at its edges and fastened there. And this 



box, this anther, contains the pollen or 



"dust" of the flowers, which one suspects 



to be matter of importance, placed thus in 



the heart of the flower, and formed thus 



centrally from metamorphosed leaves. The 



suspicion is well founded, for in this dust we 



recognize the " sperm " of the plant, — these 



tiny pollen grains being the small male cells. 



True to their kind, they are small, active, 



./p variously shaped in different plants, — and 



|;,- true to their nature, they have not power 



to develop alone. 



They contain, as we may say, but half the power 



of life. The other half is safely folded within yet 



