142 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



on one divergent branch was the alisma, or some- 

 thing very like it ; the earliest petal-bearing form 

 they produced on the other divergent branch was the 

 buttercup, or something very like it. Hence, when- 

 ever we have to deal with the pedigree of either great 

 line, the fixed historical point from which we must 

 needs set out must always be the typical alisnias or 





<s, ovaries ; h^ stamens, inner whorl ; <-, stamens, outer whorl ; d^ petals 

 e, cdlyx-pieces. 



Fig. 32.-J3iagram of primitive monocotyledonous flower. 



the typical buttercups. The accompanying diagram 

 will show at once the relation of parts in the simplest 

 trinary flowers, and will serve for comparison at a 

 later stage of our argument with the arrangement of 

 their degraded descendants, the wheats and grasses. 



Our own' smaller alisma has a number of ovaries 

 loosely scattered about in its centre, as in the butter- 



