10*5 ox TUF. COKONA OF NARCISSUS. 
4 
he, moreover, from an examination of a double flower of Narcissus 
poeticus, in which there were three coronal whoj-ls within the sepals, 
and no true petals or stamens, arrived at the strange conclusion that 
even in the normal state the three inner segments of the perianth 
(petals) were to be considered as metamorphosed anthers ! 
No one, so far as I know, has looked upon the corona as resulting 
from a combination of two rows of modified anthers ; that there are 
reasons for so doing I shall now endeavour to show. Pirst as to the 
staminal or antheral nature of the organ in question. This is, I think, 
established — first, by the arguments of Lindley and Gay, by the ana- 
logies witli Pancratium, Vellozia, Brodiaa, etc. etc.;* secondly, by 
the transitional forms observed by Gay and also by myself in various 
species. Among those described by M. Gay is one to which I have 
already alluded, and to which I must now refer in greater detail. In 
this flower (fig. 1) there were twelve segments arranged in four ter- 
nary verticils. The three outer sepallne segments were devoid of 
corona, while the other nine, detached one from the other, bore on 
their inner surface the coronal segments. The three organs occu- 
pying the situation of the petals are sessile on the summit of the floral 
tube, but the sis inner pieces are narrowed into a stalk immediately 
below the attachment of the coronal ligule ; the stalk, free above, is 
below fused with the tube of the flower, exactly as is the case with the 
stamens in the normal flower. Clearly, then, these six inner pieces are 
equivalent to stamens, the three outer ones to petals. M. G-ay then 
puts this question — Is the limb of the staminal corona equivalent to 
the connective, and the coronal appendage to the pollen-sacs, or is the 
coronal appendage comparable to the notcliedbase of the normal anther? 
In reply, M. Gay says that the coronal appendage is not only fre- 
quently bilobed or bipartite, like the lobes of an anther (fig. 2), but it 
is sometimes wanting, and it is then replaced by the two rudimentary 
pollen-sacs, adnate to the lower borders of the petaloid leaf (fig. 3). 
Hence the petaloid appendage represents the connective, while the 
coronal appendage is the equivalent of the two pollen-sacs. M. Gay 3 
figures bear out this opinion, as also do certain specimens observed by 
inyself in partially double flowers of Narcissus poeticus and iV". income 
parahilis. In the first-named plant I have met with flowers in which 
the perianth and corona were exactly in their normal condition; but 
See also Yol. T. of this Journal, Dec. 1863, p. 3 10, adnot, to § 55. 
