96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lower animals, and plants. This I have more thoroughly touched 

 upon in a previous paper.* 



The perfumes attached to plants and the animate creation are 

 in both instances used for like purposes, generally to attract, 

 sometimes to repel. 



The feasting and temporary entrapping of the flies within the 

 spathe of the arum until the pollen has been dusted upon their 

 backs for distribution, have been compared to the feasting of the 

 old-day voters at the candidate's expense. 



The intermarriage of near relatives, or the interbreeding 

 among home flocks, is most disastrous in its effect upon the 

 offspring. Plant life appears to be aware of all this, and adopts 

 the most startling devices for its confutation. Some of these 

 devices are worth tabulating : 



I. Staminate flowers, pistillate flowers these may be monoecious or dioecious. 



II. Pistils elevated above the stamens. 



III. Pistils arranged at different heights, as in the pin-eyed and rose-eyed 

 roses. 



IV. Different sizes and lengths of both stamens and pistils, as in the purple 

 loosestrife. 



V. Their own pollen acts injuriously to the pistils of some flowers, as in the 

 primroses. 



VI. Most startling observation of all the pistil is cleft and the two stigmatic 

 portions are maintained closed until the pollen of the flower is removed as in 

 the salvias. 



VII. The catkins of the oak are beautiful devices for the winds of spring to 

 scatter the pollen. 



VIII. The facts collected by Darwin in the natural history of orchids. 



IX. The milkweeds are said to be able to discriminate between those insects 

 that will be able to cross them and those that will not. Their vengeance upon 

 the useless intruder is indeed vindictive they seize upon and hold him till he 

 dies. 



X. The stamens and pistils do not always ripen at the same time. 



XI. In order to save their own increase and insure crossing, some flowers 

 denote to insects an absence of honey by a change in the color of their petals. 



Ah observant gardener informs me that races of plants improve 

 and improve by proper cultivation and care until they reach their 

 zenith. The zenith being reached, the greatest care is necessary, 

 lest the decline should begin ; but, with the necessary amount of 

 care, the height of their prosperity may be prolonged indefinitely, 

 but once the decline begins, the fall to probable extinction has 

 inevitably commenced. How well may this be likened to the 

 career of nations! Internal dissensions and the agitator's wile 

 may ruin the backbone and trade of a country, and hasten on its 

 fall. The noble and broad-minded statesman is the conscientious 



* See Something about Natural Selection, Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1892. 



