PROSERPINA. 



Nor merely in its oblique setting on the stalk, but in 

 the reversion of its two upper petals, the flower shows 

 this purpose of being fully seen. (For a flower that 

 does hide itself, take a lily of the valley, or the bell of 

 a grape hyacinth, or a cyclamen.) But respecting this 

 matter of petal-reversion, we must now farther state two 

 or three general principles. 



6. A perfect or pure flower, as a rose, oxalis, or cam- 

 panula, is always composed of an unbroken whorl, or 

 corolla, in the form of a disk, cup, bell, or, if it draw 

 together again at the lips, a narrow-necked vase. This 

 cup, bell, or vase, is divided into similar petals, (or seg- 

 ments, which are petals carefully joined,) varying in num- 

 ber from three to eight, and enclosed by a calyx whose 

 sepals are symmetrical also. 



An imperfect, or, as I am inclined rather to call it, an 

 6 injured' flower, is one in which some of the petals have 

 inferior office and position, and are either degraded, for 

 the benefit of others, or expanded and honoured at the 

 cost of others. 



Of this process, the first and simplest condition is the 

 reversal of the upper petals and elongation of the lower 

 ones, in blossoms set on the side of a clustered stalk. 

 "When the change is simply and directly dependent on 

 their position in the cluster, as in Aurora Regina,* modi- 

 fying every bell just in proportion as it declines from 

 the perfected central one, some of the loveliest groups of 

 *Vol. i., p.212, note. 



