76 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



Plants," and " Insectivorous Plants," we find 

 most interesting evidence that they are not so 

 sound asleep as is often thought. Among the 

 insectivorous plants we find actively aggressive, 

 almost militant, forms, like the well-known Venus 

 My-trap and the Sundew. Do they struggle 

 less really than the octopus ? Has not the Venus 

 Fly-trap more than a hint of memory ? Yet 

 how impossible to draw the line where aggres- 

 siveness ceases ! We have to include the pas- 

 sive pitcher-plants and bladderworts. Apart from 

 actually carnivorous plants there are various 

 orchids that entrap, or, we may almost say, 

 visibly resent certain intruding insects, and there 

 are many common plants that have deep moats 

 where unwelcome visitors drown, hedges of hairs 

 where they are entangled, sticky surfaces where 

 they are limed. 



There is no bloodshed among plants, but there 

 is over-crowding, crushing, starving, smothering, 

 strangling. Whether we take two lichens — each 

 a quaint partnership of Alga and Fungus — com- 

 peting for room to grow on an exposed stone, 

 or the plants in the meadow, or the weeds in 

 the sluggard's garden, or the crowded life of the 

 jungle, we find clear evidence of competition for 

 space and light, for food and air. This has been 

 beautifully expressed by E. L. Stevenson, in his 

 poem " The Woodman " : 



Thick round me in the teeming mud 



Brier and'fern strove to the blood : 



The hooked liana in his gin 



Noosed his reluctant neighbours in : 



There the green murderer throve and spread, 



Upon his smothering victims fed. 



