54 Some Wayside Problems 



So much for instances wherein the laws which we 

 are told govern development seem to be ignored, or 

 even contradicted. There are other cases in which 

 the processes of change from one form to another 

 exhibit themselves as considerably different from 

 what we are told to expect. In theory the processes 

 should be exceedingly slow. An animal, or plant, so 

 to say, gropes its way in the dark towards a better 

 form. A flower, for example, produces seeds, and 

 the seedlings which grow therefrom are none of 

 them the exact facsimile of the parent, nor of one 

 another, but differ, infinitesimally it may be, in various 

 particulars. Those whose differences are in a profitable 

 direction are the most likely to survive, and from 

 them will spring others in which the useful features 

 are developed still further, and so on in ever suc- 

 ceeding generations. It is the external circumstances 

 which rule the changes of growth, not any motive 

 force internal to the plant itself. Yet here again 

 it is not hard to find tongues in trees which seem 

 to tell a very different story. 



There is a plant exceedingly abundant in spring 

 beside water or in the damp places of woods, known 

 in botanical English as the Water Avens (Geum rivale). 

 Bearing a very dusky and inconspicuous flower, it is 

 likely to escape common notice, though mediaeval 

 architects were so smitten with the form of its leaves 

 as to model on them much of their foliage. It is 

 a little singular that a plant thus selected for the 

 purposes of ornament should seem to have a decided 

 taste for self-beautification. Its common form, as has 

 been said, is not striking to the common eye. But 

 among plants of the ordinary type there are sure to 

 be found some which altogether change their habit 

 of growth, and do so not in the tentative and gradual 

 fashion which evolutionists describe, but with surprising 

 thoroughness. 



The two plants bear commonly drooping flowers 

 of dusky red or purple hue, almost brown. On the 



