Can you tell me what plan the clover uses in flower building?
You will not find this easy to do. Indeed, it is hardly possible, for the clover plays you a trick which you will not be able to discover without help.
You believe, do you not, that you are looking at a single flower when you look at a clover head?
Well, you are doing nothing of the sort. You are looking at a great many little clover flowers which are so closely packed that they make the pink, sweet-scented ball which we have been taught to call the clover blossom.
It is incorrect to speak of so many flowers as one; and whenever we say, “This is a clover blossom,” really we ought to say, “These are clover blossoms.” We might just as well take a lock of hair—a lock made up of ever so many hairs—and say, “This is a hair.” Now, you all know it would not be correct to do this, and no more is it correct to call a bunch of clover blossoms “a blossom.” But as most people do not understand this, undoubtedly the mistake will continue to be made.
Fig. [260] shows you one little flower taken out of the ball-like clover head.
Can you think of any good reason why so many of these little flowers should be crowded together in a head?
What would happen if each little blossom grew quite alone?
Fig. 260