32, STUDIES OF NATURE. 



and covered with leaves, the Botariill mufl: exa- 

 mine the flower, and frequently the fruit too. The 

 clown knows them all perfedly, in the boughs 

 which compofe his faggot. 



In order to give me an idea of the varieties of 

 germination, I am fliewn, in bottles, a long feries 

 of naked grains of all forms , but it is the capfule 

 which preferves them, the downy tuft which re- 

 fows them, the elaftic branch which darts them to 

 a diftance, that it imports me to examine. To 

 (hew me the charafter of a flower, it is prefented 

 to me dry, difcoloured, and fpread out on the leaf 

 of a herbary. Is it in fuch a ftate that I can diftin- 

 guifli a lily ? Is it not on the brink of a rivulet, 

 raifing it's flately ftem over the verdant declivity, 

 and refleding, in the limpid ftream, it's beautiful 

 calix*, whiter than ivory, that 1 difcern, and ad- 



• mire, 



* According to Botanifts, the lily has no calix, but only a 

 cordhiy confifting of many petals. They call the flower a corolla, 

 and the cafe which contains the flowers a calix. This is, evi- 

 dently, an abufe of terms. Calix^ in Greek, and in Latin, means 

 a cup ; and corolla^ a little crown. Now, an infinite number of 

 flowers, as the cruciform, the papilionaceous, thofe with long 

 throats, and a multitude of others, are not formed like a coronet, 

 nor their cafes like cups. I dare venture to affirm, that if Bota- 

 nifts had given the fimple name of cafe, or wrapper, to the parts 

 of the plant which inclofe and proteft the flower before it blows, 

 they would have been on the road to more than one curious 



difcovery. 



