68 
The Queensland Naturalist 
May, 1033 
The plant and man must work together for their 
mutual benefit to complete the harmony in nature. 
Another example of harmony we have in the respirat- 
ory systems of plant and animal life. All living creatures 
need oxygen to burn up the waste products of the body. 
The oxygen and the waste combining form carbonic acid 
gas, which is given off by expiration. The plant, however, 
can make good use of the carbonic acid gas derived from 
the atmosphere which is inhaled through the green leaves. 
The carbon combining with other elements and the oxygen 
is set free. 
I think we all have experienced the fresh air in the 
hush on our naturalist excursions, how the extra supply 
of oxygen present inspired us to new life and actions, with 
a night of peaceful rest and sleep to follow. 
So important is the demand of oxygen for our exist- 
ence that our life will cease if the supply is withheld for 
only a few minutes. Inhaling air in the cities, where the 
atmosphere is more or less contaminated with carbonic 
acid gas, has injurious effects, and if it were not for the 
wind coming to the rescue as a harmonizing agent to dispel 
Uie poisonous gas, we could not live in confined quarters. 
Now how about the animals, the birds and the insects? 
Are they going to reap from what they have not sown 
and taking from the substances of the plant, without pay- 
ing a reward? In most cases they also have to do their 
share and may even suffer hardship and danger in collect- 
ing the necessities for their existence from the plant. Let 
us take the bee as an example : how busy she always is 
collecting honey for herself and her race to live. The 
flowers of most plants seem to offer the honey sparingly, 
and rightly so, for is it not offered {unconsciously to the 
bees and insects perhaps) as a means whereby pollen will 
be distributed. The honey is not required by the plant 
ioi its own self; this is clearly seen by the flowers produc- 
ing windborn pollen as no honey is found in their flowers. 
The honey is only produced as an attraction for insects 
requiring this kind of food foi* their existence. Tt is not 
offered free and to all that may have a taste for sweetness. 
The greedy ant. for instance, that likes honey very much, 
cannot partake and abstract it from the flowers. The plant 
only offers and gives the favoured juice to those insects 
that are able and willing to do its bidding. 
Likewise the birds that feed on honey flowers may he 
expected to do similar work as that done by the bees'pnd 
insects. Some plants producing small fruits and seeds are 
expecting such birds that are feeding on them to distribute 
seeds to new ground; often the kernels are hard and do 
