28 THE WASTE OF LIFE 



about a Brazilian Maxillaria that held 1,758,440 seeds 

 in a capsule. When one reflects that each one of these 

 minute bodies contains a vital spark, to be speedily 

 extinguished in all but an infinitesimal percentage of 

 them, one cannot but wonder at the prodigality of 

 nature in dealing with such a precious principle. 

 Why should the parent plant be summoned to the 

 prodigious effort of producing millions of living organ- 

 isms, whereof 999 out of every 1000 are destined 

 to die on the threshold, or, after crossing it, to be 

 smothered in infancy ? 



It is the old story: the General Manager takes no 

 account of life, whereby we set so much store, and are 

 taught to regard the purposeless waste thereof as sin- 

 ful. Only for the perpetuation of the race is elaborate 

 machinery provided. Plants are enabled to hold their 

 own in the struggle for existence by producing, either 

 immense numbers of defenceless seeds, or comparatively 

 few seeds in protective envelopes. Some families, like 

 the pines, have it both ways, bearing numerous seeds, 

 and not only provide them with a fence of extra- 

 ordinary complexity and strength the cone but 

 furnish each seed with a membraneous wing to secure 

 its transport by the breeze to a suitable resting-place. 

 As a result, coniferous trees formed by far the most 

 extensive and continuous forests of the northern tem- 

 perate zone, until they were obliterated over vast tracts 

 by reckless lumbering. 



A curious instance occurs in the Californian ' obispo ' 

 or bishop pine (Pinus inuricata), whereof the cones are 

 intensely hard, and are armed with stout, sharp, curved 



