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the: story or the: oak tre:e 
So she put her gentle hands upon the leaves and 
patiently, through hundreds of generations, she twisted 
them and shaped them and colored them until they be¬ 
came—what ? 
Calyx 
Corolla 
Stamens with pollen inside them, and 
Pistils to receive the pollen. 
In all this shaping and changing Nature had one end 
in view, a better scheme for the transfer of pollen, a 
better device for the scattering of seeds. 
Nature’s slow work of transformation, whether we 
speak of plants or animals, of roses or oak trees, is 
called Evolution. Every plant and every animal has 
grown or evolved from some much simpler form, but 
it has taken centuries to accomplish this evolution. 
Plants had leaves before they had flowers, and all 
parts of the flower except the stem are transformed 
leaves. Look at one of those great white peonies grow¬ 
ing by your garden gate, you can easily see where the 
green leaves become bracts of the calyx, and the bracts 
become petals of the corolla. Have you ever seen 
double peonies? The gardener made them that way by 
cross-fertilization; the extra petals are merely trans¬ 
formed stamens. Next summer, as you paddle your 
canoe across the still waters of the pond, pull a white 
