160 CLASS SYNGENESIA. 



or little flowers, individually, as perfect as those of a 

 larger kind, each having its distinct, flat, or tubular. 

 5-toothed corolla ; a set of stamens with 5 distinct 

 filaments, terminating in a hollow tube of 5 connected 

 anthers, through which passes a style, either single, or 

 divided into 2 stigmas ; and at the base of the whole 

 an adhering germ with one seed ; its summit often 

 crowned with a calycle, or small calyx, termed the 

 pappus or down ; as such it often becomes with the 

 maturity of the seed, though it also not unfrequently 

 presents itself in the less equivocal character of a de- 

 finite number (properly 5 or 10) of minute scales, or 

 chafT-like leaves. Of this gradual evolution of the 

 calyx, commonly the preceding part of the perianth, 

 we are not in want of examples in other families of 

 plants ; the same thing takes place in Valerian^ the 

 flowers appearing to come and go without the protec- 

 tion of the calyx, which at length becomes obvious 

 enough on the summit of the seed, in the form like- 

 wise of a plumose radiated crown or pappus, now 

 only calculated to waft abroad the seed. The seed 

 in the Composite, though often probably mistaken 

 as such, is not in reality naked. It is a species of 

 caryops or chartaceous pericarp, on maceration in 

 water sometimes divisible, though imperfectly, into 5 

 or more little valves, and includes always a single 

 seed possessed of the usual integuments. Two seeds, 

 at least might be expected as succeeding to the deep- 

 ly bifid style, or 2 stigmas of these florets. We may 

 then again, as in so many other instances in the veget- 

 able kingdom, presume an hereditary abortion, of 

 great constancy, as prevalent in this very natural 

 class. We have a stronger example of this abridg- 

 ment of vegetable resource in the Pqlygoneje (as 

 in the Dock, Rhubarb, and Buck-wheat plant), where 

 the 3-sided pericarp, preceded by 3 styles, only af- 



