310 THE LIFE OF THE PLANT 



years it would cover all the terra firma of our globe. 

 Yet the dandelion is not particularly productive. 

 According to Darwin our commonest orchid, the Spotted 

 Orchis, produces no fewer than 180,000 seeds a year, 

 so that even the grandchildren of a single plant would 

 cover the earth with a close green carpet. Nor is this 

 the limit to productiveness. There are orchids the seeds 

 of which are counted by millions. Let us, too, recall 

 the spores — the invisible grains of dust — formed on the 

 under side of fern leaves ; each of these is able to produce 

 a new plant. 



What is the natural result of this enormous multiplica- 

 tion of organisms without exception, this tendency of 

 every one of them to occupy the whole earth ? It is 

 obvious : the majority of these organisms perish. We 

 may even say that the proportion which survives is 

 insignificant as compared with that doomed to perish. 

 A hard struggle sets in for the representatives of every 

 new generation, issuing in the arrival of a very small 

 number of victors. What determines the survival of 

 these selected forms ? What circumstances decide the 

 result of the competition in their favour ? Obviously 

 their own superiority, the perfection of their organisa- 

 tion — implying by perfection, as has been already said, 

 the adaptation of the organ to its function, of the organ- 

 ism to its environment. In the majority of cases we are 

 not even able to realise wherein that superior adaptation 

 lies, because the advantage in the struggle for existence 

 may depend on a variety of properties, sometimes even 

 the opposite of one another. In one case the survival of 

 the plant is due to the fact that it germinated before its 

 fellows, appeared before them at the banquet of life, 

 and had time to seize a place in the universe ; in another 

 case, on the contrary, the selected, i.e. the surviving, plant 

 will be the one which has germinated later than its 

 fellows, and thus has happened to be preserved from 

 late frosts which kill its too hasty rivals. The struggle 



