104 
JoUKNAL OF THE K< 'YAL HOKTICULTUE-IL ScCIETY. 
agency, yet were neverilieless naturally highly self-fertile, and at the 
same time they showed no outward sign of physical weakness or 
degeneracy. He gives a hst of sixty such plants and another of sixty- 
two which were sterile without insect aid. Of these, however, some were 
on other occasions very fertile, as Mignonette, or could re-acquire fertility, 
as EschschoUzia. 
"When, however, we turn to Nature we tind that plants which are 
regularly self -fertile or wind -fertilised are by far the most prolific, and 
soon gain the mastery over others in the struggle for Ufe, as every 
gardener knows with Chickweed, Groundsel, Solanuui nigrum, Shepherd's 
Purse, Poa annua, Daisy, and many others ; while Plantains, Urtica urens, 
Eumex Acetosa and -iceto-se/Za, illustrate most prolific wind- fertilised plants. 
Such self -fertilising and wind-fertilised plants are the only kind which, 
as a rule, are cosmopohtan. being found all over the world where the 
climate permits of it : all. too, being always perfectly healthy. 
Hence Darwin's dictum is proved to have no foimdation in fact, for 
the only two '"'ends'' of plant Ufe are a healthy existence for the 
individual, and that it may have plenty of good seed every year or when 
it ceases to exist. 
How FLO^^■zBS are Made. — Now the evolution of flowers corresponds 
with these three methods of pollination, and the theory of their origin is 
that conspicuous flowers with all their peculiarities have arisen mider the 
direct and mechanical influences of the insects themselves ; that the 
living protoplasm has responded to the external forces and built up special 
tissues to meet the various strains to which the floral organs are 
submitted. 
It is by observing the innumerable coincidences, similar processes in 
different plants, the minute correlations of all parts of a flower to one 
and the same end, upon which the theory is based, such being established 
by inductive evidence. Thus, e.g.. assuming the early type of a flower 
to have been regular, one has to explain how its descendants became 
irregular, as of a Salvia or Snapdragon. The phenomenon of such 
plants bearing occasionally regular flowers thereby proves that their 
ancestors, to which they have thus reverted, bore regular flowers.* 
Ielustratioxs. — Taking in-egular flowers as examples, one observes 
that all the features presented by them — as by calyx, corolla, stamens, 
and pistil — are so correlated as to facilitate the poUination of the flower, 
while providing food for the insect, in the most direct way. 
Thus in the Lahiata the calyx is often more or less two-lobed, with 
three sepals on the posterior side and two on the anterior, giving the 
appearance of having been stretched forward. The corolla has a lip 
furnishing a landing place, the two uppennost petals forming a hood 
over the stamens, the anthers of which are brought together. They are 
erect, standing just where the thorax of the insect comes, and so receives 
the poUen. The forked stigma projects forwai'ds so as to strike the 
insect exactly where the pollen wiQ have been deposited from a previously 
^-isited flower of the same kind. 
The honey gland is situated precisely where the insect's proboscis will 
* The reader is referred to the author's work. Origin of Floral Structures by 
Insect and other Agencies, for illustrations and proo's. 
