SYMBIOSIS 2T 



buds. Like those plantagens which, owing to various circum- 

 stances, can only attain to asexual reproduction, "they also 

 are capable of leading an independent existence for a time, 

 but owing to the fact that they require for their exacting duties 

 *a large amount of food in a highly condensed form, it is not so 

 easy for them to mature their seeds where they are thus 

 isolated as it is when they are associated with the rest of the 

 community, the workers or neuters, who help to feed them." 



The attainment of sexual reproduction, and all that it 

 implies, is thus seen to be a matter of attaining a relatively 

 high character, i.e., a high degree of (unconscious) co-opera- 

 tiveness and symbiosis. Such developments are generally 

 associated with a high degree of general productiveness and of 

 status. The actual position of a plant in the scale of evolution 

 is according to its productiveness of values. It is to the sexual 

 method, moreover, that we primarily owe our "love-foods." 

 No wonder the same method has been recognised by various 

 writers as productive of progressive variations and of progres- 

 sive evolution. Weismann's " amphimixis " theory is an 

 example. 



To produce the "large amount of food in a highly con- 

 densed form," indispensable, according to Mr. Davidson, to 

 the flower-buds in the discharge of their " exacting duties," is 

 no small matter ! Especially if we add the consideration that 

 in view of the fact that every plant is engaged in symbiosis 

 with the animal kingdom, it has to provide a double adequacy 

 of nutrition domestic (racial) and bio-economic (inter- 

 organic). No wonder an efflorescence of sex involves many 

 onerous duties, and requires the complete and unobstructed 

 co-operation of all the parts concerned. Xo wonder the sexual 

 instinct is a very profound one ! The significance of sex is 

 enhanced if we remember that the value of the sexual process 

 is not only instrumental in bringing about progressive evolu- 

 tion through amphimixis, and the conservation of all that is 

 best within a species, but that it concurrently stimulates the 

 performance of indispensable bio-economic duties. 



