The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-09-07
WATER LINES.

Pink Ones Are Most Likely to SurviEss
According to the Evolution Hypothesis.
The American water lily has becoma
sweet scented in something like the fashion
I am COINS; to describe. When the roSa
chafers and water side insects fit from o1sa
lily to another, in search of the honey
secreted by the petals. they carry pollen
the yellow dust you know so well in the
center of many howers-from one blossom
to the next they visit. Now, this pollen,is
necessary in order to make the seeds swell
and so to keep up the supply of water Hhes
from one generation to another The best
seeds are produced when the flowers ara
crossed-that is to say, when pollen from
one blossom is busted over the tiny unripa
fruits of another.
The beetles and other insects dom t-know,
of course, that they are performing this
valuable service for the plant, they-GnIy
go, hungry creatures that they are, to- get
honey for the satisfaction of their 0wnr
greedy appetites; but as they runEEEIga
about among the pretty flowers they dust
themselves over unconscioussy with the
pollen, and then they fly away and rubit
off on the center of the very next lily they
chance to light upon.
Well, need hardly tell you then. that
lilies which succeed in attrectin the great
est number of insects to themselves Will
also set the greatest number of seeds, and
so will be likely in the long run to outlive
their less attractive fellows in their chill
dren's children. So if any lily happens to
possess any faint perfume, however slight,
which helps to draw upon it the notice OF
the beetles, it will be pretty sure to secure
a greater number of these unconscious al
hes, and therefore to succeed better, one
time with another, in setting its seed,than
the scentless lilies.
In some such way, take it, the go,ahead
blossoms of your American ponds began
to develop faint perfume, and as, when
once the ball was fairly set rolling, those
lilies in each generation would be most
likely to succeed which possessed themost
delicious perfume, the end of it all is that
| your American kind are now all exquisite
| " scented while our stick-in-the- old
| European type has stuck to the original
ancestral pattern and has got I'D perfume
/ at all of any sort.
/ Something of the same kind, no doubt.
also accounts for the prevalent pinkiness
of the American water lily; only here the
selectiye action of the insects has gone. but,
| avery little way, and in soIleAf yJIUrpnlds.
the lilies are still every bit as pale and,
| white as ours are. Butin some OF her ponds;
the lilies are quite distinctly pfnksr, and
at Barnstable, Mass, they are rosy red,
| and sometimes even almost crimson Here,
/ suppose we catch the Insects actually att
work; their preference for the prettY pink
flowers over the pale white ones has only
just begun to affect the color i'm some
places, but not in all.
As time goes on I have very little doub6;
the beetles will more and nihxe prefer thes
pink, until at last the white are Ieft,-en--
tirely unyisited, and, never setting their.
seed, must in the end die out altogether.
If I should visit America agzinin another
couple of thousand years OF SO 1 shall con-
fldently expect to find al the big water
lilies pink or red, and never white ora
left anywhere. There are indeed some
kinds in other parts of the world which
have already passed through this stage OF
evolution, and are now rose color, blue or
scarlet.-Grant Allen in Wide Awake.