6 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



tion of the survivors. It may be observed that the 

 various characters and habits of plants have been 

 produced by natural selection. To this it may be 

 answered that so also have the characters and habits 

 of all animals, including man ; and, nevertheless, 

 " instinct " and " sagacity " are allowed them, in spite 

 of (rather, perhaps, because of) natural selection. 



Nothing can be more marked, even among animals, 

 than the likes and dislikes of plants. Human beings 

 can hardly express the same feelings more decidedly. 

 Some species prefer the light, others the shade. 

 Some will only live in arid deserts, others in swampy 

 marshes and morasses. There are plants which love 

 the heat like a Hindoo, and other kinds which revel 

 amid the snows of Arctic regions or Alpine slopes. 

 Some are soda -lovers as regards their mineral diet- 

 ary, and therefore flourish best where that element is 

 present, as by the seacoast, on hillsides where soda- 

 felspar decomposes, or by the runnels of Cheshire 

 and Worcestershire brine-springs. We have plants 

 which grow most luxuriously where lime is abundant, 

 as the clovers ; and others which intensely dislike it, 

 as the Heather and Foxglove. Nay, there is, per- 

 haps, even a " messmateship " among plants, which 

 inclines species to prefer to grow in company, as the 

 Y ^Wow-woxt {Chlora perfoliata) seems to do with the 

 Bee Orchis {Ophrys apiferd). 



Hosts of common plants constantly perform 

 actions which, if they were done by human beings, 



