freak of Fate disappeared forever from the earth this coming 
year ? Only a generation would pass before many of our common 
plants would die out, because of their dependence on seed for 
multiplying themselves, and on these insects for helping to 
bring about the seed. Many orchards of certain varieties of 
fruit would shed their self-sterile flowers and become barren and 
useless. Of course, there would be left those plants which 
depend on suckers, runners, and other non-sexual means of 
multiplication, and those plants pollinated by the winds, and 
those that were fertile to their own pollen and that had flowers 
with both sexes present; also the plants artificially propagated 
by man. But it would be a terrible calamity. 
Darwin, in his “ Origin of Species,” mentions the need of 
the heartsease, or wild pansy, and the red clover for the humble- 
bee, and how, without his pollen-laden, honey-gathering visita- 
tions, these two plants would probably become extinct or at 
least very rare in England. And thereby hangs a tale, for it is 
said that these two plants exist by grace of the English maiden 
ladies. This happens thus: maiden ladies keep cats, cats kill field 
mice, and field mice destroy bumble or humble bees’ nests, and 
of course, without the genus of humble bees, with their long 
tongues, wild pansies and red clover would be seedless and soon 
die out of old age. But the tale has been proved an improbable 
one, as with most tales of this type, for other insects are now 
known to assist in cross-pollinating these plants. 
In the willows, poplars, the tropical papaw, thecommon “ tree 
of heaven” or ailanthus, and hops, the two sexes are separated 
on distinct “ male ” and ” female ” plants. This scheme, like self- 
sterility, gives greater opportunity for bringing “new blood” into 
the family hereditary stream, just as it does among human beings. 
Did you ever examine the “pussy-willow,” and note how the 
“pussies” on some trees are made up of little sacks of golden 
pollen, protected in a soft, warm plant-fur, and how the “female” 
trees do not have such striking “pussies”? As the spring ad- 
vances, the pollen “pussies” turn into feathery golden flower 
clusters, and before the leaves are out to be in the way, the winds 
blow and the insects come and distribute this dust to the waiting 
pistils of the “female” trees and the pollen “pussies” dry up 
and fall off, while little seeds begin to grow in the clustered 
flowers of their less conspicuous mates. In hemp, the female 
plants are generally taller than the male plants. This is the very 
reverse of what one would ordinarily expect, since their pollin- 
ating agent is the wind. But in many plants dependent on the 
wind, the mature pollen, when exposed, tends to be carried in an 
upward direction, and floats away in little clouds, just as dust 
rises when disturbed, in a seemingly quiet atmosphere, or just 
as a smoke cloud rolls away from one’s pipe on a quiet evening. 
Of course in many conifers this upward flight of the pollen is 
assisted by the winged nature of the pollen itself. In some other 
plants, the mature pollen is shot off in little clouds by an explos- 
8 
