238 EVOLUTION 



the Composites themselves, are commonly 

 vigorous and hardy growers, as may reason- 

 ably happen, the saving through subordina- 

 tion of the reproductive shoots being appli- 

 cable to help on the vegetative ones. In the 

 figs, a peculiarly vigorous and varied tribe, 

 the arrest of the inflorescence goes so far as 

 to make this like an inturned glove-finger, 

 a hollow pouch instead of the usual ascend- 

 ing cone, and with the tiny florets inside 

 accordingly. 



Now, returning to the individual flower, 

 it is an interesting fact that this process of 

 reduction of the great axis of inflorescence 

 from shoot to head, and thence to fig, is 

 repeated on that small axis of the flower, 

 which the beginner in flower dissection is apt 

 to forget altogether. This, however, may be 

 easily made out as a distinct case, in the 

 buttercup, or best of all, in the magnolia, and 

 the sepals and petals, the stamens and carpels, 

 may all be seen to arise upon this in ascend- 

 ing order, like the young crowded leaves of 

 a vegetative bud. This simple ("hypogy- 

 nous") arrangement, however, goes farther 

 in the ("perigynous") strawberry, where, 

 instead of a short conical shoot, we have 

 now the axis disk-shaped, recalling the com- 

 posite head; while even the hollow fig 

 finds its parallel in the many flowers which, 



