240 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



pose indeed, as everything always is in the balanced 

 economy of nature ; but not essential or necessary to 

 the existence of the flowers as flowers, though most 

 noticeable from their size and hue to the superficial 

 eyes of the unscientific human kind. In order to see 

 the true flowers themselves, we must cut open the side 

 of the hood or sheath, as has been done in the accom- 

 panying diagram, and then one can observe a number 

 of small knobby bodies clustering in three groups 

 along the lower part of the club-shaped spike or cen- 

 tral axis. Those little knobby bodies, of which there 

 are a great many in each arum, form the real blossoms 

 of the cuckoo-pint ; and they are inclosed in the 

 sheathing hood for a very good reason, as we shall 

 hereafter see, in order to ensure the carrying out of 

 their proper function, the final production of seeds and 

 berries. 



If one looks closely at the diagram, however, one 

 can notice tHat these little knobby flowers are not all 

 quite similar to one another. They consist of three 

 distinct kinds, all three of which are always found in 

 true arums of this type. At the bottom there are a 

 whole group of small cushion-like green lumps, each 

 with a little point in its centre, and all closely packed 

 together in several irregular rows, like Indian corn on 

 the cob. These green lumps are the pistil-bearing 



