Xref: 127.0.0.1 sci.bio.botany:18501

PvR is right - evolution doesn't plan anything. In this case, I'd suggest
that rather than try to imitate the aroma of cheese, this one just happened
by random mutation, and turned out to be popular with insect pollinators.
That plant therefore produced more seeds than others, and passed the cheesy
trait to its offspring. Now if you could find one with blue mould growing
through it...

Colin
"Iris Cohen" wrote in message
...
Some years ago I had a stapeliad type plant, I forget the name, whose
flowers
smell exactly like cheese. Presumably its pollinator was some kind of
cheese
fly. My question: mother animals in the wild don't leave their milk lying
around to turn into cheese. I understand cheese is strictly a human
discovery.
So how did a flower evolve that smells like cheese?
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so
much
that ain't so."
Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), 1818-1885