A JUNGLE CLEARING 45 
I had far from finished with my weed: for be- 
sides the cuts and tears and disfigurements of the 
leaves, I saw a score or more of curious berry-like 
or acorn-like growths, springing from both leaf 
and stem. I knew, of course, that they were in- 
sect-galls, but never before had they meant quite 
so much, or fitted in so well as a significant 
phenomenon in the nexus of entangling relation- 
ships between the weed and its environment. 
This visitor, also a minute wasp of sorts, neither 
bit nor cut the leaves, but quietly slipped a tiny, 
‘egg here and there into the leaf-tissue. 
And this was only the beginning of complex- 
ity. For with the quickening of the larva came 
a reaction on the part of the plant, which, in de- 
fense, set up a greatly accelerated growth about 
the young insect. This might have taken the 
form of some distorted or deformed plant organ 
—a cluster of leaves, a fruit or berry or tuft of 
hairs, wholly unlike the characters of the plant 
itself. My weed was studded with what might 
well have been normal seed-fruits, were they not 
proved nightmares of berries, awful pseudo- 
fruits sprouting from horridly impossible places. 
And this excess of energy, expressed in tumorous 
outgrowths, was all vitally useful to the grub— 
