A Vkry Intklluiknt Plant 261 



110 plant ever wastes one drop more of neetar 

 on its llowers, or one atom more of sweet pulp 

 on its fruit, than is absolutely necessary to secure 

 its own purely selli^li object. It offers the hu\\ 

 or the insect the mininnuu wa^e lor which bird 

 or insect will consent to do the work it contracts 

 for; and it never wastes one farthing's worth of 

 useful material on tips or generosities. The rose, 

 for all that poets have said of it, is strictlv utili- 

 tarian. " You help me and I will help you," it 

 says to the butterfly ; and it Uteps the sternest 

 possible debtor-and-creditor account with all its 

 benefactors. 



Asa familiar example of this purposive character 

 in all plant life, 1 am j^t'inj^, in the present chaptei', 

 to take one of the most utilitarian shrubs— the 

 common ^orse — and try to show you why it 

 behaves as it does in the conduct of its affairs ; 

 who help it in life and who hinder it, what friends 

 it strives to buy or conciliate, what enemies it 

 repels by what violent acts of armed hostility. 



Everybody knows j^orse ; and everybody also 

 knows that it is almost never out of flower. This 

 last peculiarity, however, is due to a cause that 

 not everybody has noticed. We have two distinct 

 kinds of j^orse at least -^ the larj^i-r and the smaller. 

 It is the larj^er sort that one observes most wiien 

 it is not in blossom, tliou^^h it is the smaller 

 kind whose jl^oIcU'II bloom contrasts so beautifully 

 in autumn with the rich purple *)f the upland 

 heather. Now, the larger j^orse bej^ins to llowi-r 

 in October or Novembi-r ; it ^ocs on openini; its 



