In the absence of Mr. Lawson, his essay on “The History of a Flower” was read by the Mr. Dimaline.

The essayist took as his theme, the Common Daisy & drew attention to the fact that that which we ordinary call a single flower is in reality a collection of numerous flowers in a compact head, those of the outside being white & either barren or female only, while those of the inner part or disc are perfect or bi-sexual. This massing of the flowers is of advantage to the plant by forming a conspicuous attraction to fertilising insects. He then mentioned several different types of aggregations of florets e.g. The umbellifers in which each small flower has its own flower stalk & calyx. The Dipsacae in which the separate flower stalks have disappeared, but the calyx still remains & finally the Composite of which the daisy is a sample, in which the calyx has either disappeared, or is specialised to form a parachute for the purpose of dispersal of the seeds by wind. The sexual organs of composite flowers were then described. The stamens being united into a tube within the corolla & the style being single & centrally placed. Self-fertilisation, always having a degrading tendency, is prevented by the stamens, bearing the male organs, arriving at maturity before the style. After the stamens have shed their pollen the capitate style rises up the tube & becomes ready for impregnation. The florets of the disc are 5 cleft & regular. Those of the ray are ligulate but the ligule shows in its crenate margin the vestige of the ancestral 5 cleft form.

The most ancient form of flower was probably nothing but simple male & female organs, destitute of specialised leaves in the shape of coloured petals & sepals; but such as happened to poses more conspicuous colour than others, or had in them sugary matter developed, would be more attractive to the early form of insects that visited them for the purpose of eating the pollen. As insects developed the flowers developed with them, until at the present time we find that all brilliantly coloured or sweetly scented flowers are fertilised by insects, while those that are small, green or dull coloured& scentless are wind or self-fertilised.

The essay was productive of a very lively discussion hanging upon the validity of the theory of the development of species by means of natural selection.