438 KINSHIP AND ADAPTATION 
carpels, numerous stamens of ordinary form, and a regular perianth 
of almost leaf-like sepals; and a very simple form of palmate leaf 
and herbaceous stem. Certain other descendants of the primitive 
stock showed in very early times a modification of the torus and 
perianth (resulting in perigynous flowers with the perianth differ- 
entiated into a well-defined calyx and corolla), also an advance in 
complexity of leaf-form, and more or less woodiness of stem. The 
plants of this branch were thus able to thrive under the more exact- 
ing conditions of open fields, and have become the highly developed 
sturdy peonies of to-day. Very early in the development of what 
we may call the hypogynous branch of the family, there appeared 
some more or less Caltha-like forms, in which the carpels did not 
open at maturity, but separated like seeds from the parent plant. 
This change of habit made it unnecessary for more than one seed 
to mature in each carpel, so the result was an achenial instead of a 
follicular fruit. Those descendants which retained rudiments of 
several ovules became in time either forms of Anemone or of Clem- 
atis according as they developed the peculiarities of this or that 
genus; while similarly those in which the reduction to one ovule was 
complete, gave rise to such plants as buttercups and mouse-tails. 
In much the same way we find those descendants which comprise 
the more primitive subbranch with its many-seeded carpels becom- 
ing differentiated into forms retaining the original follicular fruit, 
and forms in which the fruit is indehiscent and fleshy, as in Actea. 
Along the lines with follicular fruit the appearance of forms with 
certain of the stamens changed into more or less conspicuous nec- 
taries give rise to a departure from the Caltha-like forms, which in 
turn became differentiated into those in which the corolla remained 
regular and those in which more or less irregularity was shown, as 
inmonkshood. Finally, the regular-flowered forms with staminodes 
developed such peculiarities as the spurs of Aquilegia, and the 
curious follicular capsule of Nigella, by which the modern genera of 
this subgroup are now distinguished. 
‘It might fairly be asked whether entirely different lines of descent 
from those here given would not as well explain the modern forms upon 
which our reasonings have been based. Undoubtedly this is true. Thus, 
instead of supposing the progenitor of the family to have been an herb 
like the marsh-marigold we might perhaps with more probability assume 
it to have been a shrub or tree resembling a woody peony or a magnolia; 
for in other families there is much evidence in favor of the view that 
herbaceous seed-plants have had woody ancestors. But in this family 
we have no direct proof that its earliest members were woody, and for 
us to make the assumption would complicate our reasoning without 
rendering any clearer the general principle we are trying to make plain. 
Let the student, therefore, take our crowfoot family tree simply as rep- 
resenting one out of many possible ways of accounting for the facts at 
hand, and as liable to modification whenever new light appears on the 
problem. It is merely intended to illustrate the kind of reasoning that 
biologists employ in the absence of evidence from fossil remains, and 
