LUTHER BURBANK 
Just as the geranium supplements its advertise- 
ment in color with an advertisement in scent, so, 
too, the carrion lily has developed an individual 
odor-appeal, decidedly like that of meat too long 
exposed to the sun. 
So obnoxious and so penetrating is the odor 
of this flower that each year it has been found 
necessary to cut down the plant shortly after it 
has bloomed. 
And so truly has it achieved its ideal that even 
the buzzards, carrion birds that they are, attracted 
by its color, its texture and its smell, have 
descended in ever-narrowing circles—only to fly 
away in disgust when they found they had been 
lured by a flower. 
Where the geranium finds it satisfactory merely 
to block the entrance to its honey store with an 
array of pollen bundles which must be pushed 
aside by the entering insect, the Chinese carrion 
lily makes doubly sure of pollenation by means 
of a still more ingenious device. 
The fly, attracted by the color of the spathe and 
guided by the hidden odor at the base of the flower, 
lights on the sturdy spadix and uses it as a ladder 
for descent. The opening around the spadix is 
just large enough to afford a comfortable passage 
way; but once within the well, the spathe closes in 
[82] 
