110 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



With what fecundity of resource Nature marshals 

 her forces ; with what amazing ingenuity she passes 

 to her goal I 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 

 with which we are now dealing — the plant- world — 

 she is particularly rich in ways and means. See 

 how, 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 



