Cuckoo-Pint 253 



differentiation or specialisation of the flowers is here 

 complete. Above them, as before, we get the male 

 flowers, reduced to a single stamen, or rather to a 

 group of from four to six stamens each, all run to- 

 gether : for though it is usual to consider each stamen 

 as a separate flower (which it certainly is in some still 

 more degraded arums, like the little 'Capuchin' of 

 southejrn Europe), I think the analogy of marsh calla 

 and the .(Ethiopian lily justifies us in regarding them 

 as groups of six, more or less defective, and jammed 

 closely together, with the ovaries crushed out between 

 them. And at the top of all we get a perfectly 

 new factor in the compound community — a number 

 of green sacs capped by downward-pointing hairs, 

 which are, in fact, abortive pistils, like those organs 

 that form the lower group, only with their ovaries 

 barren, and their styles or sensitive surfaces length- 

 ened out into spiky hairs.' What may be the use 

 or function of these curious objects we will proceed 

 to inquire a little later: for the present we must 

 turn our attention to the origin of another part 

 of the cuckoo-pint's apparent blossom, the large 

 and conspicuous greenish-purple hood, which alone 



' It is iisual to treat these organs as staminodes— that is to say, 

 abortive stamens. I know no reason for this classification, and the 

 analogy of the scattered ovaries in the upper part of the i^thiopian lily 

 leads me rather to regard ihem.as altered pistils. 



