T ubi flora. 16s 
seed-dispersal, and the advantage (previously described) of the 
herbaceous habit. 
>|c >{< 
It will be well to introduce at this point a group which is 
admittedly isolated:— 
Plantaginales. 
The problematical nature of the affinities of this group is 
expressed in the systems of both Engler and Bentham and Hooker. 
The latter name it an “ anomalous order,” without attempting to 
find a place for it in their scheme ; Engler ascribes cohortal rank 
to the group, Plantaginales following immediately upon Tubiflorae; 
Warming includes them in Personatae, a group corresponding 
approximately to Multiovulatae. 
All save two or three species ( Littovella , Bougueria) belong 
to the familiar genus Plantago, with about 200 species scattered 
over the world but occurring mostly in temperate regions, especially 
of the northern hemisphere. The plantains are remarkably 
constant in habit, particularly in regard to the inflorescence-cha¬ 
racter ; the small flowers are almost invariably aggregated into 
dense spicate or capitulate inflorescences. 
The main features of the floral structure are as follow :—The 
corolla is regular and tetramerous; the stamens are equal in 
number to the corolla-segments and alternate with them ; the ovary 
is usually bicarpellary and bilocular, with one or more ovules in 
each loculus; the fruit is usually a capsule with transverse 
dehiscence. 
Various and diverse suggestions have been made in regard to 
the affinities of Plantaginaceas. The view most in favour at the 
present time seems to be that they represent the reduced progeny 
of an ancestral stock in Tubiflorae. That they represent a group 
reduced in descent seems undoubted, if only for the reason that, in 
spite of the advanced character of the inflorescence in relation to 
insect-visits, they are usually wind-pollinated,—as witness their 
long exserted filaments, versatile anthers, powdery pollen, etc. 
The tetramerous flowers have been compared with those of 
Veronica, emphasis being placed upon the fact that the calyx- 
segments in both are placed diagonally with relation to the floral 
axis. 1 Significance has been laid on the superficial resemblance 
between the spicate inflorescences of some species of Veronica and 
1 Eichler, BliXthendiagnmme, I, pp. 209, 210, 225. 
