I have been watching the behaviour of my three
plants of Tropseolum Speciosum, or Flame flower, which
grow in the Elm-tree garden. They are designed to
climb up the Yew fence, and in order to enable them
to do this branching twigs have been set near them
to serve as ladders. It is very curious to see how the
tender, green tendrils search out these twigs and wrap
themselves round them. The tendril that was an inch
or two away one night may be found next morning
embracing its desired twig. Peas, Runner-beans, and
all climbing plants behave in the same way, just as
though they were endowed with reason. And who will
say that they are not ?

Who taught the Sarracenias to bait their fly-catching
apparatus with honey? Who told the night-blooming
flowers that they must cultivate a perfume, and those
that open by day that they must be brilliant-hued in
order to attract the insects necessary to the reproduction
of their race ? How did the Crocus learn to store up in
its corms food that next year will be bright flowers ?
Surely there are few of those things needful to life
and to its continuance in future generations which a
man accomplishes by reason and experience that a
plant does not do by instinct, if instinct it be. Or
have they, perchance, an intelligence of their own ? At
times I have thought so.
