CULTURE OF THE GENUS HERMODACTYLUS. 
241 
table kingdom is carried on from generation to generation. So, in the human race, 
the hectic blush sometimes marks a whole family afflicted with pulmonary disease, 
though in others it settles only on one or two members of the family, and it some- 
times passes one generation, and afflicts the next race. So, also, in disorders of the 
brain, the lurking malady passes from family to family, tainting one member in his 
own person, and another in his progeny, till the disease has destroyed the race, or 
is itself overcome by some happy accident of nature. 
Now, the double-stock, having its seed-vessels and parts of fructification trans- 
formed into petals, either by a diseased seed, or excess of nourishment caused by 
rich earth, cannot perform its duty to nature by replenishing its species by seed. 
This beautiful though unnatural flower would therefore soon become extinct, were 
not florists careful in sowing the seeds of the single or natural flowers growing near 
those which have double blossoms. On examining a number of the double blossoms, 
we sometimes find a single anther concealed between the petals, the fecundating 
properties of which, although as infinitely small as pestilential particles in the air, 
are sufficient to carry disease to every pod of seed, the stigma of which it shall have 
passed over, either by the aid of the air or the accidental assistance of insects. 
Bees and other insects which live on the nectar of plants, seldom rest on flowers 
that have become so double as to exclude the parts of fructification, because there 
is no honey or nectar where there are neither anthers nor stigma. But if a single 
anther be growing in a double flower, the bees are sure to discover it, and thus 
they convey the pollen to more perfect plants ; since nature, which is so perfect in 
all her works, has not inclined the bee to luxuriate indiscriminately from flower to 
flower of different generas, for then would the pollen of the melon be wasted on 
the stigma of a rose or of a poppy ; but these industrious insects may be watched 
from blossom to blossom of every variety or species of a plant, without touching on 
one of a different family. Thus, one bee will be seen collecting from the natural 
order Cucurbitacese, whilst a second is rifling that of Rosacese, and others that of 
Labiatse, &c. ; and Jussieu himself is not better acquainted with the affinities of 
plants than are the bees and other insects which feed on the nectar of flowers. 
CULTURE OF THE GENUS HERMODACTYLUS. 
This genus is very nearly allied to the iris, and the species require very similar 
treatment to some of the species of that genus. A beautiful plate of the common 
snake’s head is given in the Botanical Magazine, t. 531, under the name of Iris 
tuberosa, but now called the H. bispathaceus , and another species is figured in 
Sweet’s British Flower Garden, t. 146, new series, called the N. longifolius, from 
which the present wood-cut was taken, which represents the plant half the natural 
