554 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and the above outgrowths the female ovule, science can find no 

 answer. Our final appeal is to the mystery of the Directivity 

 of Life. 



Let us now take an ordinary flower, such as a Buttercup, and try 

 to discover the origin of sepals and petals. 



Sepals, like bracts, from the axils of which arise flowers, are seen 

 to be the petioles only, the blade being suppressed. The flower of 

 any Rose shows how the sepals are reduced leaves, the leaflets being 

 still present in a more or less rudimentary condition, while in a 

 " monstrous " case a blade was borne at the tip of a sepal in a 

 Buttercup. 



A precisely similar origin of bracts from petioles is to be seen 

 in the Hellebore, a perfect series of transitions can be found between 

 a true leaf and a small boat-shaped bract below the flower. In 

 some cases Nature has suppressed the stalk or petiole, but retained 

 the blade to form a bract, as in Buttercups. 



Nature has adopted two ways of making petals. As a leaf 

 consists of a petiole and blade, so a petal can be made out of either. 

 Thus, in Buttercups, the Winter Aconite, and Hellebores such as 

 the Christmas Rose, in the Aconite and Columbine — all belonging to 

 the Buttercup family — the first attempt at a petal is to convert the 

 anther into a honey-pot, by leaving the cells open at the top and 

 secreting honey within them, instead of developing pollen. They 

 stand on the outside of the many stamens which these flowers have. 

 Of course, the honey is for insects, which must first have come to 

 eat the pollen. As there are no true petals, the calyx is either white 

 or coloured instead of being green, such as yellow in the Winter 

 Aconite, blue in Larkspur and the Aconite, white or purplish in 

 the Christmas Rose &c. 



The next step is to convert a honey-pot into a true petal. This 

 is well seen in the species of Buttercup (Ranunculus auricomus) called 

 " goldielocks " found in woods. 



Selecting a number of such " petals," there can be made a series 

 ranging between anthers turned into honey-pots and true petals, by 

 one side, the outermost, being enlarged, and the inner side remaining 

 small. The final and permanent result is seen in any ordinary Butter- 

 cup, in which it will be observed that the honey is secreted in a little 

 pit at the base of the petal, having a very tiny flap on the inner side. 



In the true Aconite two stamens have taken the form of crosiers, 

 while the anthers are converted into S-shaped " nectaries," as all such 

 special honey-secreting structures are called. 



We will now consider the other method. We find it in this same 

 family ; for among the Anemones (which, as a rule, secrete no honey 

 and have no corolla, only a white or coloured calyx), the Pasque- 

 flower (Anemone Pulsatilla) has the outer stamens, with rather broader 

 filaments ; these secrete honey, indicating a slight approach to 

 nectariferous petals, but not made out of the anthers. 



In the Water-lily the change from filaments into petals is very 



