reviews 
21 
Flowers and their Pedigrees. By Grant Allen. 266 pp., 54 cuts. Price , 
7s. 6d. Longmans, Green, and Co. 
This attractively printed and well-bound volume contains an article 
upon the “Daisy’s Pedigree,” in which Mr. Allen claims a very high 
position in the vegetable world for the “ wee, modest, crimson-tippit 
flower,” arguing that, “ from the strict biological point of view, daisies 
really stand to other plants in the same relation as man stands towards 
other animals.” In the next article, “ The Romance of a Wayside 
Weed,” the history of that rare plant, the hairy wood-spurge, is dis¬ 
cussed, and it is shown to be a relic of that Mediterranean flora which, 
before the last glacial epoch, stretched at least as far as our south¬ 
western counties. Then we are told about Cl Strawberries,” and here, 
in one paragraph, Mr. Allen has so well described an instance of 
“ evolution ” that we quote his words in full:—“ A strawberry, as we 
all know, consists of a swollen red receptacle or end of the flower- 
stalk, dotted over with little seed-like nuts, which answer to the tiny 
dry fruits of the ‘ barren strawberry,’ or potentilla. Suppose any 
ancestral potentilla ever to have shown any marked tendency towards 
fleshiness in the berry, what would happen ? It would probably be 
eaten by small hedgerow birds, who would swallow and digest the 
pulp, but would not digest the seed-like nuts embedded in its midst. 
Hence the nuts would get carried about from place to place, and 
dropped by the birds in hedgerows or woods, under circumstances 
admirably adapted for their proper germination. Supposing this to 
happen often, the juiciest berries would get most frequently eaten, 
and so would produce hearty young plants oftener than those among 
their neighbours which simply trusted to dropping off casually among 
the herbage. Again, the birds like sweetness as well as pulpiness, 
and those berries which grow most full of sugary juices would be 
most likely to attract their attention. Once more, the brightest- 
coloured fruits would be most easily seen among the tall foliage of the 
hedgerows, and so those berries which showed any tendency towards 
redness of flesh would be sure to gain a point in attractiveness over 
their greener rivals. Thus, at last, the strawberry has grown into the 
fruit that we know so well by constant unconscious selection of the 
little hedgerow birds, exerted at once in favour of the pulpiest, the 
sweetest, and the ruddiest berries.” 
Other valuable essays upon “ Cleavers,” “ The Origin of Wheat,” 
“ A Mountain Tulip” (Lloydia serotina of the Welsh hills), “ A Family 
History” (in which the origin and development of the existing Eng¬ 
lish roses are considered), and “ Cuckoo-Pint,” make up a volume 
which is a valuable contribution to a work which we trust Mr. 
Grant Allen will continue to carry out—“ A Functional Companion to 
the British Flora.” To quote the author’s own words, “ We know by 
this time pretty well what our English wild-flowers are like : we want 
to know next why they are just what they are, and how they came to 
be so.” 
