110 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



With what fecundity of resource Nature marshals 

 her forces ; with what amazing ingenuity she passes 

 to her goal ! As if to show her wayward child 

 how academic strictness in one straight line is not 

 the road to greatest success, she takes a thousand 

 ways to reach one and the same end, causing 

 extremes and opposites in method to give a 

 common high result. And this she does on every 

 hand, and in all of her domains. In the world 

 w^'th which we are now dealing — the plant-world — 

 s\e is particularly rich in ways and means. See 

 ^ ow, for example, some flowers need the wind 

 to assist them to propagate their kind, and note 

 the many ways such flowers have of courting the 

 wind's assistance ; see how others need the bees 

 and flies to busy themselves about them, and note 

 the many ways such have of attracting the atten- 

 tions of bees and flies ; see how some will call 

 in a beetle to eat his way to their hearts, whilst 

 others will just hob-nob together, independent of 

 any intermediary. See, again, how some plants 

 bury their roots in the earth for sustenance, whilst 

 others, with like object, will bury them in the air ; 

 see, too, how some will climb by the help of their 

 thorns, whilst others will do so by the aid of 

 tendrils, or of rootlets, or of adhering fingers. An 



