io6 Flowers and t^ieir Pedigrees. 



donous division of flowering plants. When this sprig 

 of goose-grass first appeared above the ground, it pro- 

 bably represented that typical ancestor almost to the 

 life ; for it had then only the two rounded leaves you 

 see at its base, and none of these six-rowed upper 

 whorls, which are so strikingly different from them. 

 Now, how did the upper whorls get there ? Why, of 

 course they grew, you say. Yes, no doubt, but what 

 made them grow } Well, the first pair of leaves grew 

 out of the seed, where the mother plant had laid by a 

 little store of albumen on purpose to feed them, exactly 

 as a reserve of food materials is laid by in the egg 

 of a hen to feed the growing chick. -Under the 

 influence of heat and moisture the seed began to 

 germinate, as we call it— that is to say, oxygen began 

 to combine with its food stuffs, and motion or sprout- 

 ing was the natural result. This motion takes in each 

 plant a determinate course, dependent upon the inti- 

 mate molecultr structure of the seed itself ; and so 

 each seed reproduces a plant exactly like the parent, 

 bar those small individual variations which are the 

 ultimate basis of new species — the groundwork upon 

 which natural selection incessantly works. In the case 

 of this goose-grass seed the first thing to appear was 

 the pair of little oval leaves ; and, as the small store of 

 albumen laid by in the seed was all used up in pro- 



