148 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
which supports the cat-tail ovary suggests the stalk 
of a perhaps once perfect flower, and the bristles 
the flower-leaves that used to be. 
So starting from the complete and perfect lily 
with six creamy flower-leaves, six stamens, a 
three-celled ovary, and a seed-vessel splitting into 
three, we can trace every step in a downward 
course till we come to the lowly estate of her 
distant poor relations, the cat-tail flags. 
But in members of the lily’s kin, of high or 
low degree, the fibro-vascular bundles of the stem 
are ‘‘closed,”’ the leaves have parallel veins, the 
parts of the flower follow more or less closely 
the rule of three, the ripe seed contains abundant 
nourishment, packed around the germ, and the 
sprouting plant has one cotyledon. 
And in the kindred of the rose, aristocratic or 
plebeian, the fibro-vascular bundles of the stem are 
‘‘open,’’? and the leaf-veins branch into compli- 
cated networks. The parts of the blossom are in 
fours or fives. The nourishment garnered for the 
germ is generally packed into the cotyledons, and 
those cotyledons are two and opposite. 
So from the very first the great law of heredity 
asserts itself, and the type of the race is impressed 
upon the germ while it yet lies dormant in the seed. 
