105 
ON THE COEOXA OF NJBOISSUS. 
By M. T. Masters, M.D., T.L.S. 
(Plate XXVIIL, Pig. 1-8.) 
The morpliological nature of the "corona" of Narcissus lias long 
been a matter of dispute among botanists. The late IsL Gay devoted 
considerable attention to this subject, and in his papers in the ' Bulletin 
de la SocioteBotanic|ue de France/ vol. vi.pp. 9 et 131, vol. vii. p. 309, 
will be found an account, not oidy of his own researches, but nume- 
rous references to tlie opinions and writings of others. In this place 
it is only necessary to give a short summary of the views held by, the 
naturalists cited by M. Gay, and refer the reader for fuller detail to the 
above-mentioned memoirs, 
A. de Saint-Hilaire and Germain de Saint-Pierre considered the co- 
rona as due to a process of multiplication of the perianthial segments ; 
to this M, Gay objects that the lobes of the corona are not placed 
opposite to the outer or calyciue segments of the perianth, as they 
ought to be, according to the law of alternation. Link, Gay {oUni)^ 
Schleiden, and others, consider the corona as a mere appendage to the 
perianth, playing the part of internal ligules or stipules to the seg* 
ments of that organ. 
Cagnat traces the origin of the corona to a '^ dMonhlement^'* of tlie 
six leaflets of tbe perigone. 
Henfrey, on the other hand^* from an examination of the double 
Daffodil, where there are forty or fifty petaloid organs, each with a 
more or less perfect lobe at the junction of the claw and limb, con- 
siders that there is no chorisis, causing the separate development of the 
coronal lobes. 
Balllon,t on organogenic grounds, asserts that \\\c corona is a mere 
expansion of the receptacle of the flower — a disk — formed subsequently 
to the perianth and stamens. 
Lindley considered the corona as a modified stamina! whorL 
Gay's latest researches convinced him that the corona is due to an 
assemblage of the dilated connectives of three metamorphosed anthers; 
Morphol. of Balsaminece, Journ. Linn. See. Bofc- iiL p. 161. 
t Eecueil d'Obserr. Bot. 1860, pp. 90-96 and 97-103, 
, HI. [APRIL 1, 1865.1 
I 
