1 6 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



the seeds cannot possibly be matured within the cap- 

 sules. In some species the stamens and pistils occur 

 in separate flowers, or even on separate plants ; in 

 others, the stamens and pistils occur on the same 

 plant or in the same flower, and this last is the case 

 in almost all the blossoms with which we are most 

 familiar. But the fundamental fact to bccir in mind 

 is this— that the stamens and pistils are the real and 

 essential parts of the flower, and that all the rest is 

 leather and prunella — mere outer decoration of these 

 invariable and necessary organs. The petals and 

 other coloured adjuncts are, as I hope to show you, 

 nothing more than the ornamental clothing of the 

 true floral parts ; the stamens and pistils are the 

 living things which they clothe and adorn. Now 

 probably you know all this already, exactly as the 

 readers of the weekly reviews know by this time all 

 about the personage whom we must not describe as 

 Charlemagne^or the beings whom it is a mortal sin 

 to designate as Anglo-Saxons. But then, just as 

 there are possibly people in the worst part of the 

 East End who still go hopelessly wrong about Karl 

 and the Holy Roman Empire, and just as there are 

 possibly people in remote country parishes who are 

 still the miserable victims of the great Anglo-Saxon 

 heresy, so, doubtless, there maj' yet be persons — say 



