These plants had flowers with petals so full of sap they overlapped, and finally, just because they were so full of the growing spirit, the edges of the petals grew together. Finally, the flowers with the edges grown together were the most successful. The tube their flowers made kept the nectar for the bees, and the bees liked to go into these red bells. You see what had happened: the flowers were no longer polypetalous. Their petals had grown together; they were gamopetalous. Their corollas formed snug tubes, something like a morning-glory corolla, for the bees. We shall have to call these people Octamus. And we will not follow them any farther, only be sure they kept on changing ever and ever. Whenever the seeds fell in a new soil, they had to change or die. The reason they could change so is because no two things are ever just alike, and out of a great many plants some might be fitted to survive in the new surroundings. These would live, and their descendants would be like them, but they would be different from their ancestors. In some such way, no doubt, the many different kinds of flowers have come into existence. If you ask me for the exact name of our plant that has changed so many times, I cannot tell you, for I do not know. But that, we believe, is Mother Nature’s way of making new flowers. TONGUES AND TUBES. [Illustration: [Flower Tube]] A flower tube is a most convenient and safe place to keep stamens and nectar. If it is protected by scales or hairs or a sticky juice, as is often the case, the ants and other small insects are given a gentle but convincing hint to keep out. They might readily infer their presence is not wanted, and though it may hurt their feelings a little, they have nothing to do but obey. Some flowers like ants and little crawling insects, but they have open, spreading corollas with the nectars easily reached; but you may be sure a flower with a tube is no friend to them. Its tube says “keep out” as plainly as though it had put out a printed sign, and then a tube is a sign anybody in the insect world can read, no matter what language he may speak or whether he knows his letters. But tubes are not intended to keep _all_ visitors away,—far from it. They are as much an invitation to one kind of insect as they are a request to “keep off these premises” to another. If you happen to be a large insect with a long tongue, you will be sure to find a welcome in many a flower with a tube. And no doubt, if you are fond of honey and are industrious about collecting it, you will find that the flower whose nectar you like the very best and which you visit the oftenest has a tube just the same shape and size as your tongue; and what is more, it will be in the most convenient position for you to reach it.