96 APRIL 



which it might avoid if it were a more amiable 

 neighbour. And how conies it that the Dead 

 Nettles (Lamium album and maculatum), growing in 

 the selfsame places as the Stinging Nettle, though 

 belonging to a totally different family of plants, 

 have sought protection by assuming foliage in close 

 imitation of that of the Stinging Nettle, and yet 

 have failed to distil poison from the soil or turn its 

 hairs into stinging tubes ? 



XXXV 



Of all the mysteries of plant life, none brings us 

 v U P w ^h sucn an imperious ' Halt ! ' as 



Mimicry this power of simulation, of which the 

 Dead Nettle offers such a familiar example. The 

 more closely it is considered, the further it seems to 

 be from intelligible explanation. The most salient 

 features and properties of plants are devised, for the 

 most part, to ensure reproduction, and especially 

 that degree of cross-fertilisation which is essential 

 to the vigour of the race and its success in competi- 

 tive existence. But a few plants get on better 

 without cross-fertilisation, and ingenious devices are 

 contrived to guard against it. Sometimes these 

 devices are simply structural, as in the fig, of which 



