96 IRature StuMes in ffierf^sblrc* 



'' It is a random garnering from the roadside and 

 the field. Here is a spike of blue vervain and a spray 

 of the bright agrimony. Here are daisies and chamo- 

 mile, and an early aster or two. Those are the grace- 

 ful umbels of the wild carrot, and these the clustering 

 sweets of the milkweed. Red clover everybody 

 knows, and ' butter-and-eggs,' as well. It is a mis- 

 cellaneous handful and there are members of half a 

 dozen different families in it. But they are all of 

 them clustering flowers. In one way or another, 

 each according to its own habit, these blossoms have 

 gathered themselves into groups. They seem to have 

 discerned that it is not good for a flower to be alone ; 

 and these various methods of clustering their bright- 

 ness and colour are a clear demonstration of that in- 

 stinct in their growth. The yellow bloom of the 

 agrimony around its curving spike ; the white sphere 

 of the button-bush ; the yellow-and-white disks of 

 the daisies ; — are so many various ways these flowers 

 have taken of 'getting together.' They are the ex- 

 pression and the result of the vegetable tendency 

 toward gregariousness. 



" For it must not be supposed that these flowers 

 have been arranged in such various and attractive 

 forms simply to gratify the eye of man when he 

 should come along with a power to perceive and en- 

 joy their beauty. That old conceit of human minds 

 perished long ago in the frosty atmosphere of the 

 evolution theories. The flowers began to combine 

 in groups, and associate in spikes, clusters, racemes, 



