THE PLOWBE 109 



the same way, to know the scarlet geranium* fully 

 you must go to South Africa, where it is native. Only 

 there can we see how well it is planned to make seed 

 with the help of insects. If we carry it away from its 

 native fields to a garden ; if we take it away from 

 Africa to Australia ; if we take away the flower without 

 the insect which is its friend, we cannot expect to see 

 all its plans in full working order. 



13. Here again the weeds that use their own pollen 

 have a great advantage over the finer flowers ; and 

 this is one reason why weeds like chickweed, groundsel, 

 sow thistle and black nightshade, are to be found 

 thriving in all parts of the world. Out of 40,000 

 flowers on an Australian orchid only one had a 

 seed-pod. This was because the insect friend was 

 absent. But most weeds have no need of insects 

 for dusting their flowers with pollen. But you must 

 not think that all the gay flowers are seedless jvhen 

 insects do not visit them. Some, indeed, like aconite and 

 many of the orchids, are able to make little or no seed 

 without the help of insects; others, like the scarlet 

 geranium and white clover, can make a little seed 

 without this help; others, again, like the gorse and 

 the snapdragon, make seed quite freely even when 

 bees do not come ; and in a few cases, like the sweet 

 pea and the common pea, the flower receives no insect 

 visitors at all The seeds of the sweet violet, too, are 

 not produced by the violet flowers, but by green flower- 

 buds that grow near the ground and that never open. 

 To understand all these exceptions to the general rule, 



* This is really a pelargonium. 



