By the color change, in this instance, a diurnal is converted into a nocturnal flower, and one advantage thereby gained is that the blossoms appeal to a larger class of fertilizing agents. The more restricted the circle of visitors on which any plant depends the greater the risk, in the event of insects being scarce, of its flowers remaining unfertilized and perishing. Here it would seem that Nature proceeds on the same principle as a fisherman in changing his bait. Like some other variable blossoms, Arnebia is in the advantageous position of carrying two strings to her bow. QUEER FLOWERS --GRANT ALLEN If Baron Munchausen had ever in the course of his travels come across a single flower one standard British yard in diameter, fifteen pounds avoirdupois in weight, and forming a cup big enough to hold six quarts of water in its central hollow, it is not improbable that the learned baron’s veracious account of the new plant might have been met with the same polite incredulity which his other adventures shared with those of Bruce, Stanley, Mendez Pinto, and Du Chaillu. Nevertheless, a big blossom of this enormous size has been well known to botanists ever since the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. When Sir Stamford Raffles was taking care of Sumatra during our temporary annexation, he happened one day to light upon a gigantic parasite, which grew on the stem of a prostrate creeper in the densest part of the tropical jungle. It measured nine feet round and three feet across: it had five large petals with a central basin; and it was mottled red in hue, being, in fact, in color and texture surprisingly suggestive of raw beefsteak. One flower was open when Sir Stamford came upon it: the other was in the bud, and looked in that state extremely like a very big red cabbage. Specimens of this surprising find were at once forwarded to England, and it was at last duly labeled after the names of its two discoverers as Rafflesia Arnoldi.