PRACTICAL POLLENATION 



declared themselves independent of the plant- 

 insect union. 



Plants of this non-union clan are the entire 

 races of lowly mosses and lichens ; a goodly num- 

 ber of aquatic forms that maintain the appearance 

 and manner of their remote ancestors; and the 

 familiar tribe of ferns; and some of the trees 

 which depend mainly upon the wind. 



All of these, and a large company of forms 

 less familiar to the amateur, have obstinately 

 retained throughout the ages the primeval habit of 

 propagating their kind not with immobile pollen 

 grains but with the aid of self-moving germ-cells. 

 These motile germ-cells, of microscopic size, find 

 their way through the water — supplied in case of 

 land plants by a film of rain or of dew — from 

 one plant to another, and effect cross-fertilization 

 without calling in the aid of any allies. They do 

 not need to attract insects, and so they have not 

 adopted the system of advertising through the 

 development of large and showy blossoms and 

 nectar cups to which the members of the plant- 

 insect alliance are obliged to resort. 



But if the lowly plants thus maintained their 

 independence, they have done so at a very great 

 sacrifice. 



They are not more independent than they are 

 unprogressive; and indeed they are unprogressive 



[61] 



