Roses and Apples 25 
its appropriateness is not so evident in the case of 
the Rose—where the sepals are mere outgrowths 
from the edge of the receptacle—in those flowers 
whose receptacle is flat the sepals do convert it into 
a cup. 
Now we come to the floral organs that attract the 
eye and give most pleasure—the beautiful flower- 
leaves or petals. This name petal comes from the 
Greek word etalon, a leaf or thin plate of metal. If 
you were to take the petal of a Buttercup, you would 
say the Greek word was very appropriate, for it looks 
like a little bit of gold-leaf thinned out under the 
gold-beater’s hammer. One of the most lovely things 
in nature is that pink Rose-petal, so delicately tinted, 
so exquisitely soft and silky. Well, there are five of 
these petals also, and if we wish to speak of the 
whole five together, as we did in the case of the 
sepals, we call them the corolla. That is another 
Latin word, and it means @ little crown. Now look 
at this half-open bud and say, is not little crown a 
fine and fitting word ? 
It may be asked why not say little crown in 
English and be done with it, and the same with other 
parts of the flower? There is really no reason why 
you should not do so if you prefer it, but botanists 
all the world over have agreed upon all these parts of 
a plant being named by words having either Greek 
or Latin origin, so that no matter what may be their 
own language, they can understand exactly what 
each means when he uses these words. They form 
a universal language, which makes it easy to spread 
knowledge throughout the world, and often the use 
of such a term saves a great deal of explanatory 
