d or darkening irregularly into red. And then at last the serpent
charm changes the ranunculus into monkshood, and makes it poisonous. It
enters into the forget-me-not, and the star of heavenly turquoise is
corrupted into the viper's bugloss, darkened with the same strange red as
the larkspur, and fretted into a fringe of thorn; it enters, together
with a strange insect-spirit, into the asphodels, and (though with a
greater interval between the groups) they change to spotted orchideae; it
touches the poppy, it becomes a fumaria; the iris, and it pouts into a
gladiolus; the lily, and it chequers itself into a snake's-head, and
secretes in the deep of its bell, drops, not of venom indeed, but
honey-dew, as if it were a healing serpent. For there is an AEsculapian
as well as an evil serpentry among the Draconidae, and the fairest of
them, the "erba della Madonna" of Venice (Linaria Cymbalaria), descends
from the ruins it delights into the herbage at their feet, and touches
it; and behold, instantly, a vast group of herbs for healing,--all
draconid in form,--spotted and crested, and from their lip-like corollas
named "labiatae;" full of various balm, and warm strength for healing, yet
all of them without splendid honor or perfect beauty, "ground ives,"
richest when crushed under the foot; the best sweetness and gentle
brightness of the robes of the field,--thyme, and marjoram, and Euphrasy.

88. And observe, again and again, with respect to all these divisions
and powers of plants: it does not matter in the least by what
concurrences of circumstance or necessity they may gradually have been
developed; the concurrence of circumstance is itself the supreme and
inexplicable fact. We always come at last to a formative cause, which
directs the circumstance, and mode of meeting it. If you ask an ordinary
botanist the reason of the form of the leaf, he will tell you that it is
a "developed tubercle," and that its ultimate form "is owing to the
directions of its vascular threads." But what directs its vascular
threads? "They are seeking for something they want," he will probably
answer. What made them want that? What made them seek for it thus?
Seek for it, in five fibres or in three? Seek for it, in serration, or
in sweeping curves? Seek for it, in servile tendrils, or impetuous
spray? Seek for it, in woolen wrinkles rough with stings, or in glossy
surfaces, green with pure strength, and winterless delight?

89. Ther