284 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



Just here, however, it may be observed that when the vast family 

 of the composites first gained clear recognition, Corymbijercs 

 became at once the family name, and remained steadily in use for a 

 century and more ; and Cordus made the first beginning of calling 

 the inflorescences of many commonest composites corymbs. 



Those modified leaves now known as bracts, and collectively 

 as an involucre subtending inflorescences and flowers, first ob- 

 tained mention and description by Cordus. In Daucus they so 

 conspicuously embrace the umbel, and are so very unlike the proper 

 foliage that he is careful to bring out in writing all their peculiarities^ ; 

 the first step in the direction of giving taxonomic significance to 

 the involucre in the family of umbellifers. Recalling that that com- 

 paratively modern and well advanced anthologist Tournefort wrote 

 down the involucre of every araceous plant as its " petal," ^ it is 

 interesting to note that this German youth more than a hundred 

 and fifty years before Tournefort denominated it an "involucrum, "^ 

 as do we of to-day ; for the spathe is but one type of involucre. 



The calyx under Cordus makes noteworthy though by no means 

 great progress toward gaining recognition as a part of the flower. 

 Quite in conformity to the definition which we found in Fuchsius' 

 vocabulary Cordus calls that a "caly cuius" which is synsepalous 

 and either becomes a part of the fruit, or at least a protection to the 

 growing and mature seeds. All labiates and borrage worts will 

 readily be accredited as having calyxes. But how will it fare in 

 this regard with the solanaceae. In the some half-dozen genera of 

 this family then known in German gardens there was not one, 

 Hyoscyamus excepted, which could exhibit an organ answering to 

 the then accepted definition of a calyx; and, curiously enough 

 Tragus, and even Fuchsius, when they name the "calyx " of Hyos- 

 cymus, mean nothing but the operculate, and therefore literally 

 chalice-shaped, capsule.* The real calyx goes with Tragus for a 

 "vasculum," while Fuchsius makes no reference to it whatever. 

 One can not but regret that Cordus did not describe Hyoscyamus; 

 it would have been so interesting to have seen what he with his 

 perfect originality of view would have made of the anthology and 

 carpology of a type so marked. But the youth was much engaged 

 in bringing from German meadows, river banks, and woods repre- 

 sentatives of genera unknown to the ancients, and describing these. 



« Hist. PL, p. 90. 



' Tournef. Inst., p. 158. 



« Cordus, Hist. PI., p. loa. 



* Trapus, Stirp. Comm., p. 132 ; Pucha, Hist. Stirp., p. 833. 



