i8o Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



instead of star-shaped, in order to ensure more safe and 

 certain fertilisation by these winged aUies ; for in a 

 tubular blossom the pollen is much more likely to be 

 brushed off from the insect's head on to the proper 

 portion of the unripe capsule than in an open spread- 

 ing flower like our Lloydia here. Hence we may 

 fairly say that Lloydia represents an early ancestral 

 form from which the modern and more southerly 

 tulips are nature's enlarged and improved varieties. 



But how did these pretty little white lilies get 

 here, and why do they still remain here in their early 

 simple form, while their southern sisters elsewhere 

 have been slowly modified into brilliant yellow bell- 

 shaped tulips } Thereby hangs a most curious and 

 delightful tale. For I have very little doubt that the 

 ancestors of our pretty lilies here have been growing 

 uninterruptedly in the present spot for many thou- 

 sands of years, and that during all that time they 

 have gone on reproducing themselves by seed from 

 time to time, without once having crossed their stock 

 with any of their congeners in the Arctic regions or 

 in the great snowclad ranges of central Europe. 

 Indeed, I very much doubt whether they have ever 

 even intermarried with their neighbours on the other 

 Snowdonian summits, for I think I shall be able to 

 show good reasons for believing that each of these 



