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In a previous article I discussed the general subject of the fertilization of flowers, briefly outlining the several historical and chronological steps which ultimately led to Darwin's triumphant revelation of the divine plan of "cross-fertilization" as the mystery which had so long been hidden beneath the forms and faces of the flowers.

In the same paper I presented many illustrative examples among our common wild flowers possessing marvellous evolved devices, mechanisms, and peculiarities of form by which this necessary cross-fertilization was assured.

Prior to Darwin's time the flower was a voice in the wilderness, heard only in faintest whispers, and by the few. But since his day they have bloomed with fresher color and more convincing perfume. Science brought us their message. Demoralizing as it certainly was to humanity's past ideals, philosophic, theologic, and poetic, it bore the spirit of absolute conviction, and must be heard.

What a contrast this winged botany of to-day to that of a hundred years ago! The flower now no longer the mere non-committal, structural, botanical specimen. No longer the example of mere arbitrary, independent creation, reverently and solely referred to the orthodox "delight of man." The blossom whose unhappy fate was bemoaned by the poet because, forsooth, it must needs "blush unseen," or "waste its sweetness on the desert air," is found alone in that musty hortus siccus of a blind and deluded past. From the status of mere arbitrary creation, however "beautiful," "curious," "eccentric," hitherto accepted alone on faith-"it is thus because it is created thus: what need to ask the reason why?"-it has become a part of our inspiring heritage, a reasonable, logical, comprehensible result, a manifestation of a beautiful divine scheme, and is thus an ever-present witness and prophet of divine care and supervision.

The flower of to-day! What an inspiration to our reverential study! What a new revelation is borne upon its perfume! Its forms and hues, what invitations to our devotion! This spot upon the petal; this peculiar quality of perfume or odor; this fringe within the throat; this curving stamen; this slender tube! What a catechism to one who knows that each and all represent an affinity to some insect, towards whose vital companionship the flower has been adapting itself through the ages, looking to its own more certain perpetuation!

The great Linnæus would doubtless have claimed to "know" the "orchid," which perhaps he named. Indeed, did he not "know" it to the core of its physical, if not of its physiological, being? But could he have solved the riddle of the orchid's persistent refusal to set a pod in the conservatory? Could he have divined why the orchid blossom continues in bloom for weeks and weeks in this artificial glazed tropic-perhaps weeks longer than its more fortunate fellows left behind in their native haunts-and then only to wither and perish without requital? Know the orchid?-without the faintest idea of the veritable divorce which its kidnapping had involved!

Thanks to the new dispensation, we may indeed claim a deeper sympathy with the flower than is implied in a mere recognition of its pretty face. We know that this orchid is but the half of itself, as it were; that its color, its form, however eccentric and incomprehensible, its twisted inverted position on its individual stalk-like ovary, its slender nectary, its carefully concealed pollen-all are anticipations of an insect complement, a long-tongued night-moth perhaps, with whose life its own is mysteriously linked through the sweet bond of perfume and nectar, and in the sole hope of posterity.

And the flower had been stolen from its haunt while its consort slept, and had awakened in a glazed prison-doubtless sufficiently comfortable, save for the absence of that one indispensable counterpart, towards whom we behold in the blossom's very being the embodied expression of welcome.

Blooming day after day in anticipation of his coming, and week after week still hoping against hope, we see the flower fade upon its stalk, and with what one might verily believe to be evidences of disconsolation, were it not that the ultra-scientist objects to such a sentimental assumption with regard to a flower, which is unfortunate enough to show no sign of nerves or gray matter in its composition. Who shall claim to know his orchid who knows not its insect sponsor?

To take one of our own wild species. Here is the Arethusa bulbosa of Linnæus, for instance. Its pollen must reach its stigma-so he supposed-in order for the flower to become fruitful. But this is clearly impossible, as the pollen never leaves its tightly closed box unless removed by outside aid, which aid must also be required to place it upon the stigma. This problem, which confronted him in practically every orchid he met, Linnæus, nor none of his contemporaries, nor indeed his followers for many years, ever solved.