85 *^® moth and the candle 



William Trelease, student and monographer of the yueea 

 genus, calls attention to the fact that "the mutual depend- 

 ence seems absolute" and he then, permits himself a cau- 

 tious, scientific understatement when he remarks that the 

 fact is "no doubt of the greatest suggestiveness," though 

 "its meaning has escaped both botanists and zoologists." 



Now the relatively simple one-sided arrangement which 

 is so prevalent in the plant world is difficult enough to 

 understand. Geology seems to demonstrate that the earli- 

 est flowering plants depended, as the conifers do today, 

 upon the chance that some of their abundant pollen would 

 be carried by the wind to the waiting ovaries. Then, since 

 all organic matter is potentially edible by something, it is 

 assumed that certain insects got into the habit of eating 

 pollen, accidentally got some of it entangled in the hair on 

 their bodies as many still do, and accidentally rubbed some 

 of it off on the stigmas of the other flowers they visited. 

 Since, for the plant, this was more effective than wind pol- 

 lination and involved less waste of vital material, those 

 plants which were most attractive to insects got along best. 

 And as the degree of attractiveness accidentally varied, 

 "natural selection" favored those which were most attrac- 

 tive, until gradually all the devices by which plants lure 

 insects or birds — bright colored petals, nectar which serves 

 the plant in no direct way, and perfume which leads the 

 insect to the blossom; even the "guide Hues" which some- 

 times mark the route to the nectar glands^were mechani- 

 cally and necessarily developed. 



Gardeners usually hate "bugs," but if the evolutionists 

 are right, there never would have been any flowers if it 

 had not been for these same bugs. The flowers never waste 



