AND HONEY. 213 



it is perhaps in effect nearly universal, as hardly a flow- 

 er can. be found that has not more or less honey, though 

 that liquor is far from being universally, or even gene- 

 rally, formed by any apparatus separate from the Petals. 

 In monopetalous flowers, as Lamium alburn^ the Dead 

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

 probably secretes the honey, without any evident Necta- 

 ry. Sometimes the part under consideration is a pro- 

 duction or elongation of the Corolla, as in Violets ; 

 sometimes indeed of the Calyx, as in the Garden Nastur- 

 tium, Tropieolum, Curt. Mag. t. 23 and 98, whose col- 

 oured Calyx, y! 170, partakes much of the nature of the 

 petals. Sometimes it is distinct from both, either re - 

 sembling the petals, as in Aqmlegia^f. 171, Engl. Bot. 

 t. 297, or more different, as in Epimedium.f. 172, 173, 

 t. 438, Hellehorus, t. 200 and 613, Aconitum, the Com- 

 mon Monkshood, and Delphinium^ the Larkspur. Such 

 at least is the mode in which Linnaeus and his followers 

 understand the four last-mentioned flowers ; but we 

 have already hinted that Jussieu is of a different opinion, 

 and he even calls the decided Nectary of Epimedium an 

 internal petal ! Difficulties attend both theories. It 

 seems paradoxical to call petals those singular bodies in 

 Aconitum, f. 174, like a pair of little birds, which are 

 manifestly formed only to hold the hone} , and not situa- 

 ted nor constructed so as to perform the proper functions 

 of petals ; but on the other hand Ranunculus^ t. 100, 

 515 and 516, one of the same natural order, has evident 

 calyx and petals, which latter have a honey-bearing pore ■ 

 in their claw, evincing their identity with the less petal- 

 like Nectaries just described. Other instances indeed 



