126 ORGANOGRAPHY. BOOK I. 



Brown, tiie gluma interior or corolUnn and peric/onium of some, 

 the strafjulum of Palisot cle Beauvois, the gluma of Richard, 

 the hale or Glumella of De Candolle and Desvaux, the palem 

 of others. When the arista proceeds from the very apex of 

 the bracts, and not from below it, it is denominated in the 

 writings of Pahsot a seta. Within the last-mentioned bracts, 

 and opposite to them, are situated two extremely minute 

 colourless fleshy scales {Jig. 68. e), which are sometimes 

 connate : these are named corolla by Micheli and Dumortier, 

 nectarium by Linnaeus, squamulcB by Jussieu and Browii, 

 glumella by Richard, glumellula by Desvaux and De Candolle, 

 lodicula by Palisot de Beauvois, and periphyllia by Link. 

 Amidst these conflicting terms it is not easy to determine 

 which to adopt. I recommend the exterior empty bracts to 

 be called glumes ; those immediately surrounding the fer- 

 tilising organs palece ; and the minute hypogynous ones 

 scales or squamulce. 



The pieces of which these three classes of bracts are com- 

 posed are called valves or valvules 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 sub- 

 stitute that of spathella, 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 palece. 

 Richard called the pieces of both glume and perianthium 

 palece, and the scales paleolcE. It seems to me most con- 

 venient 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 {Jig. 68. ?', //) become con- 

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

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

 late body named urceolus or perigynium. De Candolle justly 

 observes, in his Theorie, that some botanists call this nec- 

 tarium, although it does not produce honey ; others capsula, 

 although it has nothing to 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 gcnitaux ni tegumens." I 



