A Very Intklligext Plant 



279 



throiioh the important process of fructification. 

 The calyx and the petals help to keep thinj^s warm 

 tor them, and so they persist till the pods are 

 readv to open and dischar^^e their beans. 



Each pod contains as a rule four beans, and 

 these are fat and well stored with mitriment for 

 the baby seedlin*^. The youn<4 pl:int subsists for 

 its first few days on the nourishment thus laid by 

 for it ; for ^orse is not one of those improvident 

 plants which turn their younj^ ones loose upon 

 a cold and unsympathetic world without a coin 

 in their pockets, so to speak, to fall back upon. 

 Plants in this respect dither, like human bein.t^s. 

 Some send their otfsprin*^ out, mere street arabs 

 of the ve.^etable world, without any capital to live 

 upon ; others provide them with a ^ood stock or 

 reserve of foodstuff which suftices them till they 

 are of an a,^e to earn their own living. You can 

 jud^^e by the fatness and distention of the pod in 

 No. I I that the youn,s4 beans of tiie gorse are 

 fairly provided for in this respect. Indeed, so 

 rich are they in food, tliat they would sulfer seri- 

 ously from two sets of enemies, were they not 

 protected aj^ainst both exactly as the buds are. 

 The stout prickles at the ends of the branches 

 efBciently repel the assaults of browsin,<4 animals; 

 the close hairs on the pods (not seen in the sketch) 

 just as efficiently repel the insects whicli would 

 fain lay their e,L,^i4s in the beans, as one knows 

 they do in the similar case of the edible peas in 

 our i^arden. 



Nothing is more beautiful about the gorse, 



