114 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



its thin sheet of upland leaf-mold. By this simple plan the wil- 

 low manages to get protection in winter, on the same principle as 

 when we human gardeners lay down the stems of vines ; only the 

 willow remains laid down all the year and always. But in sum- 

 mer it sends up its short-lived herbaceous branches, covered with 

 tiny green leaves, and ending at last in a single silky catkin. Yet 

 between the great weeping willow and this last degraded mount- 

 ain representative of the same primitive type, you can trace in 

 Europe alone at least a dozen distinct intermediate forms, all well 

 marked in their differences, and all progressively dwarfed by long 

 stress of unfavorable conditions. 



From the combination of such unfavorable conditions in arctic 

 countries and under the snow-line of mountains there results a 

 curious fact, already hinted at above, that the coldest floras are 

 also, from the purely human point of view, the most beautiful. 

 Not, of course, the most luxuriant : for lush richness of foliage 

 and " breadth of tropic shade " (to quote a noble lord) one must 

 go, as every one knows, to the equatorial regions. But, contrary 

 to the common oj)inion, the tropics, hoary shams, are not remark- 

 able for the abundance or beauty of their flowers. Quite other- 

 wise, indeed : an unrelieved green strikes the key-note of equa- 

 torial forests. This is my own experience, and it is borne out 

 (which is far more important) by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who 

 has seen a wider range of the untouched tropics, in all four hemi- 

 spheres — northern, southern, eastern, western — than any other 

 man, I suppose, that ever lived on this planet. And Mr. Wallace 

 is firm in his conviction that the tropics in this respect are a com- 

 plete fraud. Bright flowers are there quite conspicuously absent. 

 It is rather in the cold and less favored regions of the world that 

 one must look for fine floral displays and bright masses of color. 

 Close up to the snow-line the wealth of flowers is always the 

 greatest. 



In order to understand this apparent paradox one must re- 

 member that the highest type of flowers, from the point of view 

 of organization, is not at the same time by any means the most 

 beautiful. On the contrary, plants with very little special adapta- 

 tion to any particular insect, like the water-lilies and the poppies, 

 are obliged to flaunt forth in very brilliant hues and to run to 

 very large sizes in order to attract the attention of a great num- 

 ber of visitors, one or other of whom may casually fertilize them ; 

 while plants with very special adaptations, like the sage and mint 

 group, or the little English orchids, are so cunningly arranged 

 that they can not fail of fertilization at the very first visit, which 

 of course enables them to a great extent to dispense with the aid 

 of big or brilliant petals. So that, where the struggle for life is 

 fiercest and adaptation most perfect, the flora will on the whole 



