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Plant preservation is dependent mainly upon the power of 
self-protection among plants, and upon the attitude of people 
towards them. Plants are adapted naturally to their environ- 
ment. Some of them have devices by means of which they are 
rendered undesirable both to animals that may wish to feed upon 
them, and to people who may want to pick them. The absence 
of beauty in some plants, as well as protective coloring, affords 
them shelter; while the more conspicuous are the ones which are 
destroyed. Others have a disagreeable odor, bitter taste, or 
poisonous properties; these act as a safeguard, and protect the 
plants from destruction by animals. 
All plants, however, are not endowed with the power of de- 
fending themselves against unwelcome visitors. Most are, on 
the contrary, so attractive or so beautiful, that people long to 
pick them. This is the case with our wild flowers. Almost any- 
body who sees them is instantly seized with an impulse to tear 
them up, without considering that it is the life of a plant and its 
single aim in life that they may destroy. The aim of every plant 
is to reproduce as many of its own kind as possible. If certain 
species fail to do this, those species gradually disappear. Peopl 
may say that picking a few flowers in a certain public park will 
the same parks, those parks will lose their wild flowers. This 
is what we are trying to prevent. But most people do not know 
that picking flowers is the main cause of the extermination of 
certain species of native plants. 
In order to carry out its aim, the flower must produce seeds, 
which, when scattered, fall to the ground and grow up into new 
plants. When the flower is in bloom, the work of developing 
seeds has just begun, and is not completed until the petals and 
any other attachments fall off, and the fruit of the flower is ripe. 
If flowers are gathered before the seeds are fully developed, every 
hope of reproduction on their part is destroyed, and all that they 
have already done toward it, is useless. The lives of so many 
plants have therefore been wasted. 
Some people, when picking flowers, pull them up with their 
roots. This is very disastrous to the plants, especially to spring 
