244 EVOLUTION OF PLANTS 
struggle for existence largely to the perfect provision 
for the distribution of their seeds which they have de- 
veloped. Every animal which brushes against one of 
these plants covered with its ripe fruits, carries away its 
quota of seeds, to dislodge them far away from the place 
where they grew. In this way many plants have been 
carried from their European home to all quarters of the 
globe, and where the conditions are favorable, have 
quickly taken possession of the new territory. 
The extraordinary variety shown by the flowers of 
Angiosperms is intimately associated with the question 
of cross-fertilization through the agency of animals, 
mostly insects; and the extraordinary development of 
certain groups of insects is the result of a reciprocal 
adaptation. 
There is little doubt that the first flowers were very 
simple, probably not unlike those of certain low types 
still existing, and consisted of a single carpel or sta- 
men, or perhaps a group of sporophylls, without any 
trace of the showy corolla found in the higher forms. 
The simple flowers of the aroids, pond-weeds, peppers, 
willows, and others (Figs. 48, 45, 49), are examples of 
such flowers, and whether this simplicity is primitive or 
secondary, some such forms must have been the starting- 
point. from which proceeded the development of the 
specialized flowers of the higher groups of Angiosperms. 
Such simple flowers are usually quite dependent upon 
chance for the transfer of the pollen-spores to the stigma, 
and with the exception of a few aquatic forms, the agency 
by which this is effected is the wind; hence these flow- 
ers are called ‘‘anemophilous,” or wind-fertilized. These 
anemophilous flowers are always inconspicuous and odor- 
