252 CELL INTELLIGENCE THIS CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 



panied by his friend, Senor Diego Gibson, a native of 

 Buenos Aires, likewise Senor Ramon Caceras, a horti- 

 culturist from Montevideo. They are bringing the Black 

 collection of unusual plants for the purpose of exhibiting 

 them at, the third international flower show under the 

 auspices of the Horticultural society of New York, Grand 

 Central Palace, March 17-23. 



"Mr. Black has spent twenty-seven years in South 

 America. Flowers are merely a hobby with him, and he 

 has made lengthy excursions thru the wilds of Bolivia, 

 Peru and Brazil, emerging from the dense forests after 

 a stay of several months, with plants never known to 

 have been seen by human eyes. Mr. Black was one of the 

 first to agree with Sir Francis Darwin when, as president 

 of the British Society in 1908, Darwin delivered an ad- 

 dress declaring that in plants there exists 'a faint copy of 

 what we know as consciousness in ourselves.' The fam- 

 ous scientist was laughed at by many in his theory that 

 plants can see and hear, but Mr. Black believed it and 

 indulged in research work that would prove it, as did Mr. 

 Jean Viaud-Brant, nurseryman of Poitiers, France, who 

 maintained that the rose could see the beautiful woman 

 inhaling its perfume, and furthermore that plants can 

 hear. 



"In proof of these theories, Mr. Black is bringing some 

 specimens, one of which is a sensitive plant that folds up 

 its leaves in fright if a sharp noise is made nearby, and 

 the same plant is almost human in that in addition to 

 having the temperament of a nervous woman, it is also 

 rendered insensible by anesthetics such as ether, chloro- 

 form, heroin, etc. Its discoverer says that he has reason 

 to believe that plants have a system of speech and, like 

 Mr. Viaud-Brant, cites cases where the scent of flowers 

 is a manifestation of their vegetable life and living radia- 



