Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/82

72 had long been known that the cowslip and primrose exist under two forms, about equally numerous, and differing from one another in the arrangements of their stamens and pistils; the one form having the stamens on the summit of the flower and the stigma half-way down, while in the other the relative positions are reversed, the stigma being at the summit of the tube and the stamens half-way down. This difference had, however, been regarded as a case of mere variability; but Darwin showed it to be a beautiful provision, the result of which is that insects fertilize each flower with pollen brought from a different plant; and he proved that flowers fertilized with pollen from the other form yield more seed than if fertilized with pollen of the same form, even if taken from a different plant.

Attention having been thus directed to the question, an astonishing variety of most beautiful contrivances has been observed and described by many botanists, especially Hooker, Axel, Delpino, Hildebrand, Bennett, Fritz Müller, and, above all, Hermann Müller and Darwin himself. The general result is that to insects, and especially to bees, we owe the beauty of our gardens, the sweetness of our fields. To their beneficent though unconscious action flowers owe their scent and color, their honey—nay, in many cases, even their form. Their present shape and varied arrangements, their brilliant colors, their honey, and their sweet scent are all due to the selection exercised by insects. In these cases the relation between plants and insects is one of mutual advantage. In many species, however, plants present us with complex arrangements adapted to protect them from insects; such, for instance, are in many cases the resinous glands which render leaves unpalatable; the thickets of hairs and other precautions which prevent flowers from being robbed of their honey by ants. Again, more than a century ago our countryman, Ellis, described an American plant, Dionæa, in which the leaves are somewhat concave, with long lateral spines and a joint in the middle; close up with a jerk like a rat-trap the moment any unwary insect alights on them. The plant, in fact, actually captures and devours insects. This observation also remained as an isolated fact until within the last few years, when Darwin, Hooker, and others have shown that many other species have curious and very varied contrivances for supplying themselves, with animal food.

Some of the most fascinating branches of botany morphology, histology, and physiology—scarcely existed before 1830. In the two former branches the discoveries of Von Mold are preëminent. He first observed cell-division in 1835, and detected the presence of starch in chlorophyl-corpuscles in 1837, while he first described protoplasm, now so familiar to us, at least by name, in 1846. In the same year Amici discovered the existence of the embryonic vesicle in the embryo sac, which develops into the embryo when fertilized by the entrance of the pollen-tube into the micropyle. The existence of sexual