plant ipartnersbips 117 



VII. This carrying is not to depend ujDon the 

 good-will or intention of the carriers, but must be 

 a necessary happenhig of their own existences. 



Let us see how all this is secured. 



The pollen of floAvers is a most fine, delicate dust. 

 It must be conveyed without injury in the most 

 accurate manner. Many flowers are exceedingly 

 high up, as on climbing vines, or growing on tree- 

 tops, peaks, or house-tops. Many other plants are 

 very low down, lying close to the ground, as the 

 bluets, chick weed, arbutus, partridge-berry, and 

 others. A large number of plants are in positions 

 inaccessible to man or the larger animals. 



Man excepted, the larger animals seem generally 

 to have a destructive mission to plants, devouring, 

 breaking, or trampling down. Men themselves are 

 often ruthless destroyers of beautiful plants, and 

 seem generally to care for and conserve only what 

 concerns human convenience. 



Here, then, we have the problem of plants fixed 

 in their places, needing carriers for their pollen to 

 distant plante of their own kind, at the exact period 

 of maturity. The carriers must be able to go high 

 or low, into all manner of difficult localities ; they 

 must be delicately made, so that they will not injure 

 the plants which the37" visit, capable of carr3^ing the 

 frail pollen grains unharmed, and they must have 



