V 



MARRIAGE AMONG THE CLOVERS 



PLANTS marry and give in marriage just as 

 truly as animals. They have their loves 

 and their hatreds, their friendships and their 

 enmities. The marriage customs of many among 

 them are vastly interesting ; and yet, in spite of 

 all the attention that has been given to the subject 

 of recent years, comparatively few people are even 

 now aware how quaintly they pair, how varied and 

 curious are their matrimonial arrangements. Most 

 of us, it is true, have heard by this time the bare 

 facts of the case that flowers are mainly fertilised 

 by the visits of insects : many of us even know 

 that in the majority of instances the little golden 

 dust which we call pollen must be transferred from 

 the hanging bags on one blossom to the sensitive 

 surface of another, or else seed will never be set ; 

 but not all of us are aware how intricate and 

 how numerous are the minor devices by which 

 each kind of plant effects this important object 

 in its own fashion. I am going, therefore, in the 

 present paper to describe briefly the marriage cus- 

 toms of two alone among our commonest clovers, 

 which I shall adduce as specimens of the strange 



94 



