266 OF THE NECTARY 



rapid combination of oxygen gas with the 

 carbon of the plant; an hypothesis hardly 

 adequate to explain either. 



Nectarium, the Nectary, may be defined 

 as that part of the Corolla which contains or 

 which secretes honey. It is perhaps in effect 

 nearly universal, as hardly a flower can be 

 found that has not more or less honey, though 

 that liquor is far from being universally, or 

 even generally, formed by any apparatus 

 separate from the Petals. In monopetalous 

 flowers, as Lamium album the Dead Nettle, 

 t. 768, the tube of the corolla contains, and 

 probably secretes, the honey, without any 

 evident Nectary. Sometimes the part under 

 consideration is a production or elongation of 

 the Corolla, as in Violets ; sometimes indeed 

 of the Calyx, as in the Garden Nasturtium, 

 Tropceolum, Curt. Mag. t. 23 and 98, whose 

 coloured Calyx partakes much of the nature 

 of the petals. Sometimes it is distinct from 

 both, either resembling the petals, as in Aqui* 

 legia, Engl Bot. t. 297, or more different, 

 as in Epimedium, t. 438, Helleborus 9 t. 200 

 and 613, Aconitum, the Common Monkshood, 

 arid Delphinium^ the Larkspur. Such at 



