SPRING FLOWERS 99 



depends to some extent on the plant's position in the 

 evolutionary series. The simpler, the more normal, the 

 more generalised, in short, the older, tend to flower first. 



" The most simple and generalised forms, coming first 

 in the course of floral evolution, have had longest time 

 in which to adapt themselves to existing climatic con- 

 ditions ; and, reciprocally, climatic conditions have become 

 more and more favourable to the rapid development of 

 the said forms. So a floral type that ages ago would have 

 reached its perfection only after a long continuance of 

 favouring seasons, now may burst into the fulness of its 

 maturity with the first warmth of Spring. 



" But as change succeeded change, in the course of time 

 a maximum point would be reached, from which the con- 

 ditions would become less and less favourable to the rapid 

 development of types surviving from an earlier age. Then 

 these would dwindle from the earth replaced, driven out, 

 by those that had come into existence in a later age. 



" Thus, in the ages to come, the early flowers of to-day 

 will disappear, to be replaced by what are now our later 

 flowers ; whose place, in turn, will be filled by forms that 

 are yet to be." 



Let us therefore be glad in the Spring flowers which, 

 like ourselves, are children of a day. 



Let us, as Solomon said, crown ourselves with rose-buds 

 before they be withered. 



