4 Dr. Smith's Characters of a new Liliaceous Genus 



If the petals of Gnidia prove Daphne to have a coloured calyx, 

 these correspondent parts in the liliacece must receive correspon- 

 dent names. Jussieu therefore is consistent when he denomi- 

 nates the analogous part in the Uliacea and in Daphne a calyx, 

 and so is Linnteus wlien he calls it in both instances a corolla; 

 but the latter errs against all consistency and analogy when he 

 terms calyx in Gnidia what he had, in the preceding page, 

 named corolla in Daphne. Mr. Salisbury's rule, given in the 

 first paper of our 8th volume, that the stamens are never inserted 

 into the calyx, is one of the best upon the subject, yet not with- 

 out its difficulties, some of which, from a love of truth alone, I 

 beg leave to suggest. If we admit this rule in rosaceous 

 flowers, and the more I have thought on the subject the more I 

 feel disposed to do so, we can hardly allow it in Ribes, whose 

 whole faded calyx, perfectly homogeneous and indivisible, sticks 

 to the top of the fruit, retaining the withered petals and sta- 

 mens, Avhich are together inserted into its sides. If we say ana- 

 logy proves the lower half of this pretended calyx to be a recep- 

 tacle, a similar mode of reasoning will prove the tube of Pan- 

 cratium, Narcissus, Tulbaghia, and of my Brodicea to be a re- 

 ceptacle also, the limb only being the calyx, and the crown a^ 

 corolla. If this be granted, the lower part of the corolla, as it 

 is usually called, in HemerocaUis, Agapanthus, Amaryllis, Hya~ 

 cinthus, &c.; even the claws of such few, if any, polypetalous 

 liliacece as really have their stamens inserted there, must also be 

 a receptacle, and the upper part a calyx; which is too paradoxi- 

 cal to be allowed. I say nothing of the spatha belonging ta 

 some of these liliaceous genera, because even when present I do 

 not think it can invalidate my argument. Their generic charac- 

 ters are independent of it, as those of the umbelliferce are of 

 their involucra and involiicella. I have therefore, in describing 



the 



