32 2 The Living Plant 



especially of night-blooming flowers, in which the association of 

 sweet odor and white color is very common. This same aid of 

 odor to color is found in those flowers which bloom in very in- 

 conspicuous positions, such as close to the ground, or among 

 leaves in the shade, as the Mayflower illustrates; and in general 

 odoriferous flowers that are not night-blooming are the shy little 

 kinds of the woods. Odor also aids color, or acts as a substitute 

 in some flowers which have not attained to a corolla, or have lost it, 

 as in some Willows and Maples. On the other hand, flowers that 

 grow in exposed places, and display an abundance of color, very 

 rarely possess any odor, as the tall kinds of the meadows, the 

 river-banks, the autumn roadsides and the prairies all illustrate, — 

 the absence of sweet flowers from the prairies in particular being 

 matter of common knowledge and frequent comment. And 

 finally, as to odor, we need note but one more point, that while 

 most floral odors happen to be pleasing to us, there are some that 

 are not, as in case of the Skunk Cabbage and a good many others 

 of that family. But such odors have their lovers among insects 

 to which they are doubtless more sweet than all of the spices of 

 Araby. Indeed, it is only a fortunate accident that any of the 

 odors of plants give us pleasure at all; for in their evolution our 

 tastes in the matter were not in the least consulted. 



Color and odor suggest nectar, which is the real attraction to 

 insects in the great majority of flowers. It can usually be seen 

 very easily at the bottoms of floral tubes where it lies as a clear 

 watery liquid; and sometimes in special receptacles of more open 

 flowers it stands out in great glistening drops, as conspicuously 

 illustrated by the Crown Imperial. However, a good many 

 flowers are without it entirely, in which case the attraction is 

 pollen, then produced in unusual abundance; for some insects 

 prefer pollen to nectar, making use of it not only for food, but 

 also for building their honeycomb cells. And if the reader should 

 ask me why some flowers use nectar while others use pollen as 

 their means of attraction, I agree that I will tell him when he has 



