SECT. I. ORGANOGRAPHY AND GLOSSOLOGY. 123 



stamens and pistils into petals. The various parts of 

 these supernumerary whorls alternate with those which 

 precede them in the series. 



(120.) Normal Characters. It will readily he un- 

 derstood, how numerous may be the modifications 

 which can be referred to the same normal condition 

 of the parts of a flower, if we suppose the three 

 causes which we have enumerated, capable of acting 

 separately, or together. If, for instance, the normal 

 character of a flower consisted of five sepals, five 

 petals, five stamens, and five carpels; and these several 

 parts were so arranged, that all those which were 

 in any one whorl, alternated in position with those in 

 the contiguous whorls this arrangement would consti- 

 tute a highly regular flower, such as we meet with in 

 the genus Crassula (fig. 134.). By simultaneously sup- 

 pressing one, two, three, or four 

 parts of each whorl, we may con- 

 ceive four other flowers to be 

 formed, equally symmetrical with 

 the original, but disagreeing with 

 this normal type, in not possessing 

 a quinary arrangement of their 

 parts. Irregularity might now be 

 introduced, by suppressing certain 

 parts of some whorls and not of others, or by form- 

 ing adhesions between two or more parts of one whorl, 

 whilst the other parts remained free ; or by supposing 

 some of the parts of one whorl to degenerate, and 

 assume a variety of distorted shapes. In this way, an 

 infinite variety of forms may be supposed to result 

 from a few normal types ; and it is by detecting these, 

 that the systematic botanist is enabled to ascertain the 

 affinities of certain species, which at first sight appear 

 widely separated. 



Whenever the parts of one whorl are placed opposite, 

 instead of alternate with, the parts of the contiguous 

 whorls, this circumstance is considered to indicate a 

 want of regularity in the flower, although there may be 



