first to conceive the pretty idea of making a floral clock, drew
up a list of blossoms whose times of opening and closing marked
the hours on its face; but even Linnaeus failed to understand
that the flight of insects is the mainspring on which flowers
depend to set the mechanism going. In spite of its whiteness and
fragrance, the water lily requires no help from night-flying
insects in getting its pollen transferred; therefore, when the
bees and flies rest from their labors at sundown, it may close
the blinds of its shop, business being ended for the day.

"When doctors disagree, who shall decide?" It is contended by one
group of scientists that the water lily, which shows the plainest
metamorphosis of some sort, has developed its stamens from petals
- just the reverse of Nature's method, other botanists claim. A
perfect flower, we know, may consist of only a stamen and a
pistil, the essential organs, all other parts being desirable,
but of only secondary importance. Gardeners, taking advantage of
a wild flower's natural tendency to develop petals from stamens
and to become "double," are able to produce the magnificent roses
and chrysanthemums of today; and so it would seem that the water
lily, which may be either self-fertilized or cross-fertilized by
pollen-carriers in its present state of development, is looking
to a more ideal condition by increasing its attractiveness to
insects as it increases the number of its petals, and by
economizing pollen in transforming some of the superfluous
stamens into petals.

Scientific speculation, incited by the very fumes of the student
lamp, may weary us in winter, but just as surely is it dispelled
by the fragrance of the lilies in June. Then, floating about in a