42 Flozvers and theh^ Pedigrees. 



humble, commonplace, almost insignificant little flower, 

 that it seems queer to hear it described as a higher 

 type of plant life than the tall pine-tree or the spread- 

 ing oak. But, as a matter of fact, the pine is a very- 

 low type indeed, as is also the giant tree of California, 

 both of them belonging to the earliest and simplest 

 surviving family of flowering plants, the conifers, 

 which are no better, comparatively speaking, among 

 plants, than the monstrous saurians and fish-like 

 reptiles of the secondary age were among animals. 

 If size were any criterion of relative development, 

 then the whale would take precedence of all other 

 mammals, and man would rank somewhere below the 

 gorilla and the grizzly bear. But if we take complexity 

 and perfection in the adaptation of the organism to 

 its surroundings as our gauge of comparative evolu- 

 tion, then the daisies must rank in the very first line 

 of plant economy. For if we follow down their 

 pedigree in the inverse order, we shall see that, inas- 

 much as they have coloured rays, they are superior to 

 all their yellow-rayed allies (for example, the sun- 

 flower) ; and inasmuch as these have rays, they are 

 superior to all rayless composites (for example, the 

 eupatory) ; and inasmuch as composites generally 

 have clustered heads, they are superior to all other 

 flowers with separate tubular corollas (for example, 



