THE NARCISSUS. 



73 



tions in order to stir up your own independent thought. Of 

 course, it is much easier to ask questions than it is to answer 

 them ; there will always be a doubt, for example, as to whether 

 Adam was a black man or a white one ; and after all, do not the 

 highest and best of us believe, and firmly believe, a great many 

 things — mere traditions even — of which there is not, nor ever 

 can be, any indubitable proof given to minds that are mortal ? 

 Even science, as I apprehend, loses rather than gains by being 

 faithless and unpoetical. Huxley tells us that one may expect 

 or suspect, an occurrence, even if one cannot believe on proof, 

 and so I expect, or suspect, that the Daffodils we see around us 

 now are developments, not from the Sternbergias of Europe 

 to-day, but from the same or a very similar type as that 

 from which Sternbergia as Sternbergia sprang. True Nar- 

 cissi are of a more modern and so higher origin, being 

 more complex and yet not sufficiently different to prevent 

 hybridism ; and if I were asked to say what I suspect to 

 be their nearest early relatives, I should name the little 

 Tapeinanthus lutea and T. humilis (the Carregnoas of Will- 

 kommen) as being the simplest or most primitive of Nar- 

 cissus-like plants known to me. When I first mentioned my 

 suspicions as to the development of Daffodils from a more primi- 

 tive Sternbergia-like plant, a friend at once asked me, " Well \ 

 and from what do you think have arisen the South American, the 

 Andine genera of Eucharis, Ismene, Hymenocallis, etc., etc. ?" 

 And of course I referred him to the more primitive stock of 

 American "West-wind flowers" — the Zephyranthes — as very 

 probable early representatives. Of course, here again I do not 

 say that Eucharis or Hymenocallis has actually developed from 

 what we now call Zephyranthes ; but it seems reasonable to sup- 

 pose that a common origin, not very much further back than 

 Zephyranthes, would furnish both and all these genera named. 

 Of course, much of our so-called science is merely a temporary 

 or tentative view, and perhaps natural science can never become 

 absolutely finite (like some branches of mathematics), one tale 

 only being true until a better story is told. 



Just for a moment let us see for ourselves the structure of a 

 present-day Daffodil, and we may at least make some rude 

 attempt at tracing back the development of its flower. 



The main difference between a true Lily and the Amaryllids 



