SEASIDE WEEDS. 159 



The flower of the kali, indeed, is still essen- 

 tially a goosefoot flower a mere incon- 

 spicuous little green blossom, hidden in the 

 angle between the stem and the leaves, after 

 the fashion of many plants which have not 

 learnt how to develop bright petals for the 

 attraction of insects. But the goosefoots, in 

 the course of their spread over the earth, 

 would often shed their seeds upon sandy 

 places ; and being as a rule originally rather 

 disposed to fleshiness, especially in the stems, 

 they must often have managed to live on even 

 in these unfavourable situations where most 

 other plants would starve or wither outright. 

 Of course only the very fleshiest specimens 

 would survive to blossom and set their seed ; 

 and these seeds, again, would produce young 

 plants, most of which would be just as succu- 

 lent as their parents, while a few would 

 doubtless surpass them in this respect. As 

 such natural weeding out of the least adapted 

 forms would occur with every drought, and as 

 the best adapted which lived through the 



