CLASSIFICATION. 



the carpels and ovules in some recent Cycads, such as 

 species of Cycas and Encephalartos, suggests the probability 

 that the attraction of colour were not wanting to the more 

 elaborate flowers of the older Cycadophyta." The extraordi- 

 narily striking analogy which is presented between the Bennet- 

 titean flower and that of some of the Ranales leads to the 

 conclusion that the earlier Angiosperms are not those with 

 minute unisexual flowers, but some of those with large 

 complex flowers and numerous sporophylls. To asrain quote 

 from Dr. Scott: — l " The complexity of this earliest known 

 type of a true flower indicates the probability, as Dr, Wieland 

 points out, that the evolution of the Angiospermous flower 

 was a process of reduction. " 



Again, in a most interesting paper 3 on the origin of 

 Angiosperms by Messrs. Newell Arber and John Parkin, the 

 Piperales, Amentif eree, Aracese and other orders with very 

 simple flowers are regarded as derived from phyla with more 

 complicated ones, while Nymphaeaceee, Magnoliaceee, and 

 other polycarpicse among Dicotyledons, Alismacese, Buto- 

 maceae, and Palmaceoe among Monocotyledons are taken as 

 exhibiting many primitive features. But even if it be now 

 a plausible theory that the Angiosperms sprung from seed- 

 bearing plants, which bad already large and well-developed 

 flowers, and if it be conceded that on the whole the Ranales 

 show most primitive characters, paleobotany still throws no 

 direct light on the relative age of the several other Angios- 

 permous groups. The appearance of the most widely separated 

 groups is said to be sudden and simultaneous, and what are 

 universally believed to be younger groups occur in the same 

 beds with what are believed to be primitive. Even Gamo- 

 petalaB, and actually the Caprifoiaceae (Viburnum) are, if 

 leaf diagnosis can be relied upon, found as far back as the 

 Cretaceous period. 3 No light is thrown, even, on the relative 



1 Journal'Eoy. Micro. Soc., April 1907, p. 141. 

 J Journal of the Linnean Society, XXXVIII, p. 263. 

 s Vide Laurent in Lea Progres de la PaloSbotanique angioBpermiqo* 

 dans la derniere decade (Progressus Eei Botanicra, Vol. I, pp. 360-361) 



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