THE MARRIAGE OF PLANTS  1%5 
and conspicuousness to attract to themselves insects 
that will distribute their pollen. 
Who can look at a meadow on a summer’s day 
and doubt that butterflies and bees are attracted by 
the beauty and perfume of the flowers! Evidently 
they enjoy the perfume as much as we; and ego- 
istic man should learn to know that beauty was not 
made for him alone, but for even the tiniest creature 
that exists. 
Dr. Asa Gray has long since called attention 
to and minutely described the physiology of the 
fertilisation of flowers. It is a subject that has 
required volumes of description; too deep and wide 
a subject to be more than scanned here. Only a 
few of the unusual cases of plant courtship and 
marriage will be mentioned. 
There are numerous orchids, like the Angraecum 
of Madagascar, that can be fertilised only by a 
large moth. This moth has a proboscis ten to four- 
teen inches long, and is very rare. The insect 
always lands on the labellum of an orchid; and 
while many orchids have no honey to give their 
guests, their juicy tissue is a dainty offering to 
many flies and other insects. 
Perhaps one of the strangest and most interest- 
ing methods of securing cross-fertilisation is that 
used by certain water plants which have their flower- 
