THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE FLOWERS 



I 



1WISH merely to recall here a few facts known to every 

 botanist. I have made not a single discovery; and my 

 modest contribution is confined td a few elementary ob- 

 servations. I need hardly say that I have no intention of re- 

 viewing all the proofs of intelligence which the plants give us. 

 These proofs are innumerable and continual, especially among 

 the flowers, in which the struggle of vegetable life towards 

 light and understanding is concentrated. 



Though there be plants and flowers that are awkward or 

 unlucky, there is none that is wholly devoid of wisdom and in- 

 genuity. All exert themselves to accomplish their work, all 

 have the magnificent ambition to overrun and conquer the sur- 

 face of the globe by endlessly multiplying that form of ex- 

 istence which they represent. To attain this object, they have, 

 because of the law that chains them to the soil, to overcome 

 difficulties much greater than those opposed to the increase 

 of the animals. And therefore the majority of them have re- 

 course to combinations, to mechanical contrivances, to traps, 



[ 21 ] 



