'TYPE FLOWER' AND 'Alonme.moNs.' Since the structure of the flower is so extensively used as a criterion in classification, there has come to he associated with it an enormous mass of technical terms. most of which are of no value except to the professional botanist. As the important ter minology deals with the so-called 'modifications,' it will be given in eonnection with a description f the various relations which the floral members hold to One another. In the older morphology a so-called 'type flower' was assumed, and all variations from it were regarded as modifications of this type. This false conception in great measure has been abandoned, and flowers are recognized as having developed along many dif ferent lines from exceedingly primitive condi tions. For example, the flower of the lily was once regarded as a typical monocotyledonous flower, and all simpler forms were thought to be modifications of this type. The possible transi
tion from the flower of a lily to that of a grass has often been cited. the meaning being that a grass-flower is merely a reduced lily-flower. The present view, however, is that the simpler grass flower is more likely to be a primitive condition than a derived one. It is impossible as yet to distinguish all the lines along which flowers have advanced, and the relations of these lines to each other. Certain prominent lines are, however, conspicuous, and may serve as illustrations. In all of this evolution of flowers the end attained seems to be a better scheme for the transfer of pollen, chiefly by means of insects, or better de vices for the scattering of seeds, or both. These conspicuous paths of advance may be summarized briefly as follows: