Scents of Flowers 



to the flowers. In support of this contention 

 it is urged that the most highly scented flowers 

 are not usually the most conspicuous ones, since 

 it is not necessary for a flower to be both highly 

 coloured and strongly scented. Again, those 

 flowers which open at night are usually very 

 highly scented. 



Plausible though this view seems, there are 

 weighty objections to it. These are so admirably 

 summarised by Kay Robinson in the issue of 

 The Country-Side for March 27, 1909, that we 

 feel we cannot do better than reproduce his 

 words : 



"It is true that many flowers which are 

 strongly scented are visited by insects, but these 

 flowers have abundance of nectar, and the insects 

 come in spite of the scent, and not on account of 

 it. They visit unscented flowers, provided that 

 they have nectar, equally freely ; and they do 

 not visit flowers which have scent without nectar. 



" Moreover, fruits are more generally scented 

 even than flowers; but what explanation have 

 those, who attribute the scents of flowers to the 

 tastes of insects, for the scents of fruits ? Insects 

 which visit fruits are only robbers. Therefore, 

 if we say that plants have scents for the purpose 

 of attracting insects, we accuse all plants which 

 have scented fruits of attempted suicide. 



" There are hosts of plants, again, with scented 

 leaves. Here also the insects are only robbers, 



265 



