244 Floivers and their Pedigrees. 



of the arums had originally six coloured petals like 

 the lilies, Tor a reason which I will shortly mention ; 

 and inside these petals were six stamens and a three- 

 celled ovary or uriripe capsule. It is a very long step, 

 certainly, from such perfect flowers as those to such 

 very rudimentary and reduced types as the little florets 

 which we get in the cuckoo-pint, each consisting of a 

 few stamens or a single one-seeded fruitlet, without 

 any trace of petals whatsoever. Yet we have very 

 good evidence of the slow course of degradation by 

 which the arums have reached their present condition ; 

 and, as happened in the case of wheat, several surviv- 

 ing intermediate forms enable us to bridge over the in- 

 tervening gulf. In other words, there are plants which 

 resemble the lilies in some things, while they resemble 

 the arums in others ; and by means of these plants we 

 can trace a regular gradation from the perfect and 

 bright-coloured flowers of the true lily to the imperfect 

 and inconspicuous little unisexual blossoms of our 

 English cuckoo-pint. It is interesting, too, to observe 

 how the very same original stock which in one direc- 

 tion ga.ve birth to the degenerate wind-fertilised wheat 

 and grasses, has in another direction given birth to the 

 equally degenerate but insect-fertilised arums and their 

 congeners. The one case shows the course of degra- 

 dation as it takes place in poor dry soils ; the other 



