PO VER TY AND BANKR UPTC V. 213 



not require much research to see that the Cleavers 

 has degenerated ; that once in its individual history 

 it possessed much larger and perhaps more brilliant 

 flowers, fertilised by the higher insects. Now it is 

 so poverty-stricken it can only produce these small 

 ones, which are fertilised by insects diminutive in 

 proportion. The near allies of the Cleavers, the 

 Bedstraws {Galmui violhigo, Galium veritvi, etc.), have 

 also suffered floral reverses, but they to some extent 

 make up for them by adopting the social or co-oper- 

 ative principle, and cluster their small flowers in 

 spikes and tufts, so that the hedgerows are gay with 

 their white and yellow blossoms. The pretty Field- 

 madder {Sherardia arvensis) still retains the colour 

 of its high rank — a lilac tint ; and both this and its 

 shape proclaim that our feeble little herb, hiding 

 away in our cornfields, is another illustration of 

 both floral and vegetal degeneration. The fact that 

 all the above plants have only four, instead of five 

 petals united to form their corollas, is another bit 

 of evidence pointing to the same conclusion. The 

 tropical members of this order are many of them 

 possessed of very beautiful flowers, such as the 

 Gardenias^ Coffea, etc., and assume arboreal pro- 

 portions and magnitude, as witness the Cinchona 

 trees. All our British species are "poor relations" of 

 this otherwise highly-developed group, and botanical 

 evidence proves that they "have come down in the 

 world." 



