The Scents of Flowers 



upon them, and still more, that the scents were 

 a delight to man, and for that purpose especially 

 they were created. To think otherwise would 

 have been considered heresy and unbelief; by a 

 distortion of the text which gave to man " Every 

 green herb of the field for meat," it was argued 

 that the ultimate object of every part of every 

 green herb of the field was to fit it for the food or 

 for the delight of man. We now think differently, 

 and give our answer as boldly. While we thank- 

 fully acknowledge that the beauty of flowers, their 

 scents and flavour add largely to our enjoyment 

 of them, we say now without hesitation that it is 

 not for us especially that the beauty, scents, and 

 flavours of flowers have been produced. Our 

 present creed is that every colour and every 

 shade of colour in a flower, every arrangement 

 of cell, root, fibre, stamens, pistils, calyx, corolla, 

 etc., all and each have the one object of perfecting 

 the life of the plant, and helping it to reproduce 

 itself. And if this is true of other parts of the 

 plant it must be true of the scents. In some way 

 or other the scents must be an essential part of 

 the life of the plant ; they must perform some 

 special duty which nothing else could perform. 

 And in speaking of the scents of plants and their 

 function in the life of the plant, it will not do to 

 confine our research to sweet scents ; for it is quite 

 certain that evil scents — evil, that is, to us — are as 

 essentially necessary to the plants in which they are 

 found as rich, pleasant scents are to other flowers. 

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