"I wish you would look at this," he said. "I can't tell petals from stamens."
The Chief Gardener took the flower, and slowly pulled it to pieces.
"Well, no," he said; "it isn't the easiest thing to do, though, of course, those anther-looking things must belong to stamens."
"But the filaments are like petals," objected Davy.
"Yes, and here are others like them, though they have no anthers. Those are supposed to be stamens, too, or, at least, they were stamens, once."
Davy looked puzzled.
"You remember I told you once, Davy, that a flower was only one form of a leaf—a leaf intended to make the plant beautiful, and to make it bear seed. Well, in some plants, especially cultivated ones, the flower-leaves seem to get rather mixed in their parts."
The Chief Gardener picked a scarlet canna that grew near.
"Here is a flower which has three little petals and four large flower-leaves which you would think were petals, wouldn't you? But the stamens and petals and sepals are so mixed that even botanists can hardly decide which is which. In a water-lily, too, the petals gradually become stamens, so, perhaps, the leaf came first, ages and ages ago, and little by little it has changed, first to sepals, then petals, then to stamens and pistils, so that it could make seeds and scatter them to the wind. Gardeners make double flowers out of single ones by a process of turning stamens and even pistils into petals. The double flower is sometimes very beautiful, but it is not the most perfect flower. The wild rose is more perfect than the finest double American Beauty. Perhaps double flowers came before single ones, a long time ago, when the leaves were turning to blossoms, so that the gardeners who make the wonderful double blooms now are really going backward instead of forward. But that is all too hard. I'm afraid—especially for a little girl who likes very double carnations."