^2 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FLOWERS 



land provided a new home for the ''surplus popula- 

 tion." One might as well say that Englishmen ought 

 to have died out when they sent colonists to America 

 and Australia ! This is the principle to bear in mind : 

 The old or original environment remains good for the old 

 type. The new type may even live in the same region, 

 but it has new habits or a new diet. Nature really 

 provides half-a-million environments. So you get 

 half-a-million species in them. There is life wherever 

 there is an environment. 



This is quite plain in the case of the plants, which 

 we are now going to consider. Omitting the micro- 

 scopic and other early types, there was a time when 

 none existed above the specimens of what you may 

 broadly call the '* sea-weed." Some of these invaded 

 the land, and were gradually transformed, in the new 

 conditions, into ferns and mosses. But this did not 

 make the least difference to the sea- weeds themselves. 

 The sea was as good a world as ever for them. In 

 course of time the ferns and mosses begot higher 

 types. But the particular sphere of ferns and mosses 

 remained. Your humble moss is still monarch of its 

 own environment; say, the moist, shaded hillside. It 

 is particularly fitted for that world, and thrives there 

 better than higher plants would. The pine and yew 

 were born of a remote Ice Age. But there are plenty 

 of cold and hardy regions for them, and they remain. 



Thus, while the plant world has been marching on 

 through the ages, it has like the animal world, left 



