A JUNGLE CLEARING 45 



I had far from finished with my weed: for be- 

 sides the cuts and tears and disfigurements of the 

 leaves, I saw a score or more of curious berry-like 

 or acorn-like growths, springing from both leaf 

 and stem. I knew, of course, that they were in- 

 sect-galls, but never before had they meant quite 

 so much, or fitted in so well as a significant 

 phenomenon in the nexus of entangling relation- 

 ships between the weed and its environment. 

 This visitor, also a minute wasp of sorts, neither 

 bit nor cut the leaves, but quietly slipped a tiny 

 egg here and there into the leaf -tissue. 



And this was only the beginning of complex- 

 ity. For with the quickening of the larva came 

 a reaction on the part of the plant, which, in de- 

 fense, set up a greatly accelerated growth about 

 the young insect. This might have taken the 

 form of some distorted or deformed plant organ 

 a cluster of leaves, a fruit or berry or tuft of 

 hairs, wholly unlike the characters of the plant 

 itself. My weed was studded with what might 

 well have been normal seed-fruits, were they not 

 proved nightmares of berries, awful pseudo- 

 fruits sprouting from horridly impossible places. 

 And this excess of energy, expressed in tumorous 

 outgrowths, was all vitally useful to the grub 



