DEGENERA TION. 1 09 



primitive forms as the buttercups, the potentillas, the 

 Alismacece^ and the simpler HHcs of the Gagea type. 



Thus we are led, at last, to the somewhat unex- 

 p^ected conclusion that anemophilous angiosperms 

 are later in development than entomophilous angio- 

 sperms, and are derived from them. Though the 

 earliest flowering plants — the pines, cycads, and other 

 gymnosperms — were undoubtedly anemophilous from 

 the first, yet the probability seems to be that all 

 angiosperms were originally entomophilous, and that 

 certain degenerate types have taken later on either to 

 self-fertilisation, or to fertilisation by means of the 

 wind. Why this apparently retrograde change has 

 proved beneficial to them it would be impossible pro- 

 perly to inquire at the close of a work devoted to the 

 simple question of the colours of flowers. We must 

 content ourselves with noting that such degraded 

 green flowers fall for the most part under one or 

 other of four heads: (i) dwarfed or weedy forms; 

 (2) submerged or aquatic forms ; (3) forest trees ; 

 (4) grass-like or plaintain-like plants of the open 

 wind-swept plains. That there are no primitive 

 families of green or anemophilous angiosperms, it 

 might perhaps be rash and premature to assert ; 

 but at least we may assume as very probable the 

 principle that wherever green flowers possess any 

 perianth, or the relic or rudiment of any perianth, 

 or are genetically connected with perianth-bearing 

 allies, they have once possessed coloured insect- 

 attracting corollas. In short, green flowers seem 

 always (except in gymnosperms) to be the degene- 

 rate descendants of blue, yellow, white, or red ones. 



