21 



Why it is that certain plants can be picked freely, and others 

 not, may be more readily understood, perhaps, if we consider for 

 a moment the life relations of plants in general; for plants, in 

 common with animals, are living organisms. The life activities 

 of plants, like those of animals, are directed toward two ends, 

 namely the maintenance of the plant as an individual and the 

 propagation of the plant as a species. The flower is the repro- 

 ductive organ of the plant. It gives rise to the seeds, by which 

 the plant is propagated. Picking the flowers, therefore, means 

 that no seeds will be produced. In many cases, however, where 

 the plants are abundant and where they blossom prolifically, 

 producing numerous seeds which germinate readily, the flowers 

 may be picked freely without apparent detriment. This, of 

 course, is notoriously true of the plants we commonly class as 

 weeds, which flourish in spite of all our efforts to get rid of them; 

 and it is equally true of various other plants. With many plants, 

 however, propagation is uncertain enough, even when the flowers 

 are left to go to seed. In some forms, such as the trailing arbutus, 

 for example, seasonal or other conditions may be such that seeds 

 are produced only at infrequent intervals; and even then there 

 may be but a few that are fertile. Again, the seeds of no plant 

 will germinate unless they happen to fall in situations which are 

 favorable to germination; and some plants are very exacting in 

 this respect. In any event, the majority of the seeds produced 

 in nature fall on "sterile ground." With annual plants, there- 

 fore, which are dependent entirely upon seeds to carry over the 

 species from one year to the next, only those forms should be 

 picked which, as indicated by their present abundance, have de- 

 monstrated an unquestioned ability to take care of themselves. 



With perennial plants the situation is somewhat different. 

 For the most part, wild herbaceous perennials, like the cultivated 

 ones of our gardens, are provided with underground parts by 

 which, under favorable circumstances, the individual plant may 

 live on indefinitely, dying down to the ground at the end of one 

 season and sprouting up afresh at the beginning of the next. But 

 if the part of the plant above ground be broken off in mid-season, 

 and with it the leaves, the chances are that the subterranean 

 parts which remain will die of starvation; for the leaves are the 

 factories, so to speak, where the plant's food is manufactured. 

 The danger of extermination in this way is particularly great in 



