PRACTICAL POLLINATION 245 



conspicuously colored flowers. Nor need it pro- 

 duce nectar to feed the insect allies, since these 

 have been renounced. And it may very well 

 chance that the saving of energy thus effected 

 more than counterbalances the waste through 

 excessive pollen production. 



At all events the plants that have adopted 

 this system of pollinizing give evidence that their 

 plan is not a bad one in the very fact of their 

 extreme abundance. 



Moreover the "wind-loving" or "anemophil- 

 ous" plants, as the botanist terms them, have not 

 only produced a great variety of species and vast 

 numbers of individuals, making up the bulk of 

 our forests, but the individuals themselves are of 

 such virility of constitution as to attain gigantic 

 size. Indeed a moment's consideration makes it 

 clear that the plants that had depended on the 

 wind rather than on insects for fertilization are 

 quite in a class by themselves in the matter of 

 size, inasmuch as they constitute the bulk of our 

 temperate forest trees. 



This relation between size and habit of spread- 

 ing the pollen broadcast on the winds cannot 

 be altogether accidental. 



But whether the trees grew large because they 

 had given up the alliance with the insects, or 

 whether they gave up the alliance because 



