The unfolding of plants from buds.
Now suppose you could see all this happen while you stand looking at the vine. Suppose you could see the bud swell, then the leaves push out, then the flowers form, then the grapes, and then see the whole grow while the grapes are growing and ripening. You would think this very wonderful. But it is just as wonderful to have all this done slowly. The great wonder is that it is done at all. No one but God could make all this come from a bud. And he could do it in an hour as well as in several weeks if he thought it was best.
Rock-saxifrage.
This unfolding of plants is very beautiful and interesting. I have often watched it in the rock-saxifrage, one of the wild flowers of spring. I have, for this purpose, taken it up with a little earth around it, when it was nothing but a small bud peeping up out of the ground, and have put it into a saucer. As I watched it from day to day the bud spread out into leaves. Then came up a little stalk out of the midst of the cluster of leaves, and on the end of the stalk appeared a great many little white flowers.
English cowslip.
The crown of the crown-imperial.
You see the same thing in the English cowslip, which is represented at the bottom of the opposite page. All this came from a little bud, just as it is with the rock-saxifrage. That curious but elegant plant, the crown-imperial, unfolds in a little different way. A stalk comes up in the midst of the leaves; but as it grows up leaves come out from the stalk. When it is fully grown, and in blossom, the whole plant presents a singular but splendid appearance. The long pointed leaves stand out around the tall, straight stalk for some way up. Then the stalk is naked for as much as the length of two fingers, and on the top is a crown of leaves and flowers, the flowers hanging down. It is very well named the crown-imperial.
But there are jewels in this crown that most people do not see. They are to be seen only by looking up into the flower. In each leaf of the flower where it joins on to the stem there is a beautiful little shallow cup which is very white. From this cup hangs a shining drop, like a tear. The whiteness of the cup gives the drop a rich pearly color. It seems, as you look up into the flower, as if there were six splendid pearls fastened there.
Each cup always has this drop hanging from it. If you put up something which will soak it up, there will soon be another one formed there. These drops are the honey of the flower.