PRACTICAL POLLIXATION 237 



evolution of tht whole race of plants that bear 

 beautiful flowers and exhale sweet perfumes. 

 But for this eventful alliance, there would never 

 have developed in the world a conspicuously 

 colored or a fragrant flower of any kind. 



And it requires no argument to show that a 

 w^orld without beautiful and fragrant flowers 

 would be a world robbed of a large share of its 

 attractions as an abiding place. 



But that is not all. The alliance between in- 

 sect and flower did not merely suffice to give us 

 things of beauty. It bespoke utility as well. It 

 made possible the bringing together of germ 

 plasms from plants growing far apart, thus in- 

 suring virile and variant strains; and this de- 

 termined in large measure the amount and 

 direction of the evolution of the highest orders 

 of plants. 



For it must be observed that, with rare excep- 

 tions, the higher plants are precisely those that 

 long ago entered into this cooperative scheme 

 whereby they trusted their fate absolutely to the 

 insects. They hazarded much — for if anything 

 should lead to the destruction of a few insect 

 races, entire orders of plants would have become 

 extinct. But if they risked much, they also 

 profited much; for the cross-pollenizing effected 

 by the insects afforded the constant stimulus to 



