By Thomas Bruges Flower, Esq. 147 
student is to be guided in extricating himself from this labrinth 
of conflicting statements and opposing terms, and which will also 
enable him to conduct future investigations in cases of doubt and 
difficulty. 
An attentive consideration of the varied forms of natural objects, 
will convince him that bodies exhibiting the greatest apparent dis- 
similarity are connected together by intermediate gradations of 
structure which thus present a chain of appearances, each link of 
which but slightly differs from its fellow, though its extremes are 
so unlike. In the present instance the flower of the Hellebore which 
is considered by Linnean botanists (Smith, Withering, &c.) to possess 
no calyx, but to have petals only with nectaries enclosed, is described 
by Hooker, Lindley, &c., as consisting of an outer envelope, which is 
the calyx, the nectaries being real petals. This difficulty is at once 
removed and the true nature of the structure made intelligible, by 
considering Hellebore together with Trollius, “ Myosurus,” Ranuncu- 
lus, Aquilegia, Delphinium, and Aconitum, as intermediate gradations 
of structure, extending from the extreme of Adonis to that of Ane- 
mone or Caltha, the two former genera being furnished with perfect 
flowers, composed of calyx and corolla, whilst the two latter have the 
calyx only, the corolla being entirely absent. With this view J 
would explain the structure of the floral organs in the British 
genera of the Ranunculacez, by considering Hellebore to occupy 
theoretically the apex of an inverted triangle, from which the 
different genera rise to the extremes of the series which may be 
supposed to occupy the other angles. 
Calyx and Corolla. Adonis* . . . . . *Anemone, Calyx only. © 
Trollius* *Aconitum. 
Ranunculus* *Delphinium. 
Myosurus* | *Aquilegia. 
Hellebore. 
(This diagram is merely intended to illustrate the relations which 
the allied genera bear to each other.) 
Commencing then with an examination of the flower of Hellebore, 
we find just within the outer envelope a whorl -of little tubular 
bodies, each having the external (with respect to the axis of the 
L 2 
