256 THE FLOWER. 



461. The Coalescence or union of the parts of the same whorl or 

 set of organs is so frequent, that few cases are to be found in which 

 it does not occur, to a greater or less extent, in some portion of the 

 flower. When the sepals are thus united into a cup or tube, the 

 calyx is said to be monosepalous, or, more correctly, gamosepalous : 

 when the petals are united, the corolla is said to be monopetalous, or 

 gamopetalous ; the latter being the appropriate term, as it denotes 

 that the petals are combined ; but the former is in common use, al- 

 though strictly incorrect, as it implies that the corolla consists of a 

 single petal. The inappropriate names, in these cases, were given 

 long before the structure was rightly understood. So, also, such a 

 calyx or corolla is said to be entire, when the sepals or petals are 

 united to their very summits (as the corolla of Convolvulus, which 



unlining [read chorisis, which Dunal, as quoted by Lindley, proposes to sub- 

 stitute] which may not be as well explained by the theory of alternation." 

 Not to mention other instances, how is the androecium of Fumariacese to be 

 explained upon the theory of alternation ? If by the hypothesis still repro- 

 duced in the Vegetable Kingdom, p. 436, we inquire, What analogy war- 

 rants the supposition that a stamen, or a leaf, may split into halves, and the 

 halves unite each with a different filament which has an angular distance of 

 90 degrees? " 2. It is highly improbable and inconsistent with the simplicity 

 of vegetable structure, that in the same flower the multiplication of organs 

 should arise from two wholly different causes, viz. alternation at one time, 

 and unlining at another. 3. As it is known that in some flowers, where the 

 law of alternation usually obtains, the organs are occasionally placed opposite 

 each other, it is necessary for the supporters of the unlining theory to as- 

 sume that in such a flower a part of the organs must be alternate and a part 

 unlined, or at one time be all alternate and at another time be all unlined, 

 which is entirely opposed to probability and sound philosophy. See the Ca- 

 mellias figured in the Elements of Botany, p. 76, fig. 156, 157,158." In 

 double Camellias the numerous petals of the rosette are in some cases spirally 

 alternate, in others placed opposite each other in five or more ranks. Now, 

 when in the very same species two such different modes of arrangement oc- 

 cur, is it not a priori more probable that the two arrangements result from 

 different causes and are governed by essentially different laws? "4. The 

 examination of the gradual development of flowers, the only irrefragable proof 

 of the real nature of final structure, does not in any degree show that the sup- 

 posed process of unlining has a real existence." Compare with this the well- 

 stated abstract of Duchatre's memoir on the Morphology and Organogeny of 

 Malvaceae, which is given in the same work (Vol. 2, p. 70, et seq.}, and 

 which demonstrates that the stamens of the Malvaceous flower appear and 

 multiply in a manner wholly conformable to the doctrine of chorisis, as here 

 maintained, and hardly explicable upon any other theory. See, also, several 

 diagrams of the estivation of flowers of Malpighiacee, where the petals ex- 

 tend within the outer row of stamens. 



