INTELLIGENCE OF FLOWERS 



When shall we discover the secret of cutting in so frail a 

 fabric as the silk of the petals a spring as powerful as that 

 which projects into space the golden pollen of the Spanish 

 Broom? As for the Momordica, or Squirting Cucumber, 

 whose name I mentioned at the beginning of this little study, 

 who shall tell us the mystery of its miraculous strength? Do 

 you know the Momordica? It is a humble Cucurbitacea, 

 common enough along the Mediterranean coast. Its prickly 

 fruit, which resembles a small cucumber, is endowed with inex- 

 plicable vitality and energy. You have but to touch it, at the 

 moment of its maturity, and it suddenly quits its stalk by means 

 of a convulsive contraction and, through the hole produced by 

 the wrench, shoots, mmgled with numerous seeds, a mucilagi 

 nous stream of such wonderful intensity that it carries the seed 

 to four or five yards' distance from the natal plant. The action 

 is as extraordinary, in proportion, as though we were to succeed 

 in emptying ourselves with a single spasmodic movement and 

 in precipitating all our organs, our viscera and our blood t:; 

 a distance of half a mile from our skin and skeleton. 



A large number of seeds besides have ballistic methods 

 and employ sources of energy that are more or less unknown 

 to us. Remember, for instance, the explosions of the Colza 



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