Cuckoo- Pint. 265 



short for us to know even a cuckoo-pint to the very 

 bottom ; and so, perhaps, instead of turning aside to 

 other subjects of interest in its structure and functions, 

 it will be best to recapitulate afresh from an historical 

 point of view the main steps in the evolution of the 

 arum tribe at which we have already glanced. 



Originally, the ancestors of the arum were a sort 

 of lilies, with bright petals, and with six stamens and 

 a three-celled ovary to each flower. They had also a 

 papery spathe or hood, like the narcissus and the 

 onion, at the base of their blossoms ; and this spathe 

 has been gradually modified into the green cap of 

 the modern cuckoo-pint. Slowly the flowers became 

 reduced in size, like those of acorus ; and then they 

 grew degraded In structure, till at last they entirely 

 lost all their petals — a stage at which the lower flowers 

 of the Ethiopian lily still remain. Next, the blossoms 

 began to differentiate into three distinct groups, which 

 owed their specialised form to the new mode of insect 

 fertilisation. The lowest flowers lost all their stamens, 

 and were reduced to a single ovary each. The middle 

 flowers lost all their ovaries, and were reduced to a 

 few stamens each. The topmost flowers underwent 

 a still more curious change, and after losing their 

 stamens made their ovaries abortive, in order to act 



as eel-traps for the fertilising flies. The series of 



18 



