376 DARWINIAFA. 



ada of pollen-grains (each an elaborate organic struct 

 ure) are wastefully dispersed by the winds to one which 

 reaches a female flower and fertilizes a seed. Con- 

 trast this with one of the close-fertilized flowers of a 

 violet, in which there are not many times more grains 

 of pollen produced than there are of seeds to be fer- 

 tilized ; or with an orchis-flower, in which the propor- 

 tion is not widely different. These latter are certain- 

 ly the more economical ; but there is reason to be- 

 lieve that the former arrangement is not wasteful. 

 The plan in the violet-flower assures the result with 

 the greatest possible saving of material and action ; 

 but this result, being close-fertilization or breeding in 

 and in, would, without much doubt, in the course of 

 time, defeat the very object of having seeds at all. 1 

 So the same plant produces other flowers also, pro- 

 vided with a large surplus of pollen, and endowed (as 

 the others are not) with color, fragrance, and nectar, 

 attractive to certain insects, which are thereby induced 

 to convey this pollen from blossom to blossom, that 

 it may fulfill its office. In such blossoms, and in the 

 great majority of flowers, the fertilization and conse- 

 quent perpetuity of which are committed to insects, 

 the likelihood that much pollen may be left behind or 

 lost in the transit is sufficient reason for the apparent 

 superfluity. So, too, the greater economy in orchis- 

 flowers is accounted for by the fact that the pollen is 

 pac'ked in coherent masses, all attached to a common 

 stalk, the end of which is expanded into a sort of 

 button, with a glutinous adhesive face (like a bit of 

 sticking-plaster), and this is placed exactly where the 



> See page 346. 



