In My Vicarage Garden 



Speaking generally it is now assumed, and 

 by many is supposed to be proved, that scents, 

 especially sweet scents, attract moths and other 

 insects whose help is necessary to the perfecting 

 of the plant, while evil scents help — like thorns, 

 prickles, and stings — to keep away animals, 

 especially browsing animals, from plants which 

 would thus be destroyed. This may explain 

 some small portion of the uses of scents to the 

 plants, but it is far from explaining all ; it gives 

 no explanation, for instance, of those cases where 

 the scent is only found in the roots, or in the 

 seed, nor of the cases where the scent is very 

 strong in the leaves, and where the flower does 

 not require insect agency as in the lemon-scented 

 verbena ; nor of the hundreds of cases of exotic 

 plants grown in England, where the scent is very 

 powerful, but the plants never produce seed. And 

 though this explanation is often spoken of as one 

 of the discoveries of modern science, it is not so ; 

 it is at least as old as Lucretius ; though his 

 explanation refers more to the food of the animals 

 than of the plants : 



" Aliis alius nidor datus ad sua quemque 

 Pabula ducit, et a tetro resilire veneno 

 Cogit ; eoque modo servantur secla ferarum." 



De Rer. Nat. iv. 687. 



Lucretius was so fond of giving examples of 

 natural objects that supported his theories that 

 it is a pity he did not give us examples from his 

 own observations of plants whose scents either 

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