STRUCTURE.] VALVES HYPOGYNOUS SETJJ. 318 



determine which to adopt. I recommend the exterior empty 

 bracts to be called glumes; those immediately surrounding 

 the fertilising organs palea or pales ; and the minute hypo- 

 gynous ones scales or squamulce. 



The pieces of which these three classes of bracts are 

 composed are called valves or valvulce by the greater part of 

 botanists ; but, as that term has been thought not to convey 

 an accurate idea of their nature, Desvaux has proposed to 

 substitute that of spathellce, which is adopted by De Candolle. 

 Palisot proposed to restrict the term glume to the pieces of 

 the glume, and to call the pieces of the perianthium paleae. 

 Richard called the pieces of both glume and perianthium 

 paleae, and the scales paleolce. It seems to me most conve- 

 nient to use the term valvula, because it is more familiar to 

 botanists than any other, and because I do not see the force 

 of the objection which is taken to it. 



In the genus Carex two bracts (fig. 67. i, h) become con- 

 fluent at the edges, and enclose the pistil, leaving a passage 

 for the stigmas at their apex. They thus form a single 

 urceolate body, named urceolus or perigynium. De Candolle 

 justly observes, in his Theorie, that some botanists call this 

 nectarium, although it does not produce honey ; others cap- 

 sula, although it has nothing to do with the fruit; but he 

 does not seem to me more correct than those he criticises in 

 arranging the urceolus among his miscellaneous appendages 

 of the floral organs, which are "ni organes genitaux ni 

 tegumens." I believe I was the first who explained the true 

 nature of the urceolus, in my translation of Richard's Analyse 

 du Fruit, printed in 1819 (p. 13.). 



At the base of the ovary of some Sedges (Cyperacese) are 

 often found little filiform appendages, called hypogynous seta 

 (fig. 67. d) by most botanists, and perigynium by IfcTees von 

 Esenbeck. These are probably of the nature of the hypo- 

 gynous scales of Grasses, and have been named perispores 

 by some French writers. 



Bracts are generally distinct from each other, and imbri- 

 cated or alternate. Nevertheless, there are some striking 

 exceptions to this ; as remarkable instances of which may be 

 cited Althaea and Lavatera among Mallowworts (Malvacea3), 



