have seen how plants as well as animals
deliberately and effectively exercise this power of choice. And
adaptation implies adjustment to an end, and we have seen how
wonderfully plants no less than animals adapt themselves to certain
ends. And where individuals have the power of choice and exercise
that power; and where they have the power of adapting themselves
to certain ends and exercise that power, there obviously is
purposiveness.

Purposiveness runs like a streak through every activity. It permeates
the whole forest life. It is observable in plants no less than in
animals. Naturalists, indeed, regard trees and plants as truly sentient
beings. And the means plants employ to compass the end they have
in view, are truly wonderful. Still more remarkable is the fact that
hardly two attain their object by exactly the same means. The
tropical forest is full of climbing plants bent upon reaching the
sunlight. But some climb by coiling round the trunk of a tree like a
snake, some swarm up it by holding on with claws, some ascend by
means of adhering aerial roots, and some reach what they want by
pushing through a tangle of branches spreading out arms and
hauling themselves up. And when plants have attained maturity and
flowered, the flowers employ numberless ways of attracting insects
for the purpose of fertilisation. In a still, tropical forest, such as that
of Lower Sikkim, there is no hope of the pollen being carried from
one flower to another by air-currents. The flowers have therefore to
devise a means for the transport of the pollen. Efforts are made to
induce winged creatures--insects in most cases, but sometimes
birds--to render assistance. Colours for day-flying insects and scent for
night-flying insects are accordingly employed as means to this end.
Brilliant colours attract butterflies and bees by day. Strong scent
--sometimes pleasant to our taste, sometimes the reverse--attracts
moths and other insects by night. And the flowers which depend on
their scents and not on colour are usually white or dull brown or
green. And this scent is not exhaled when it is not needed, but only
when the insects which the flowers wish to attract are about.

Orchids especially seem to _know_ what they want. Their aerial
roots wander about in search of what they want and seem to smell
their way. They use discrimination in utilising their knowledge.
They _choose._ And each individual seems to choose in its own way.
From among ma