54 PROSERPINA. 



without making up my mind, on either question I am told 

 to "observe the floral receptacle of the Californian genus Esch- 

 scholtzia." Now I can't observe anything of the sort, and I 

 don't want to ; and I wish California and all that's in it were 

 at the deepest bottom of the Pacific. Next I am told to com- 

 pare the poppy and waterlily ; and I can't do that, neither 

 though I should like to ; and there's the end of the article ; 

 and it never tells me whether one pair of petals is always 

 smaller than the other, or not. Only I see it says the corolla 

 has four petals. Perhaps a celandine may be a double poppy, 

 and have eight, I know they're tiresome irregular things, and 

 I mustn't be stopped by them ; * at any rate, my Koman 

 poppy knew what it was about, and had its two couples of 

 leaves in clear subordination, of which at the time I went on 

 to inquire farther, as follows. 



13. The next point is, what shape are the petals of? And 

 that is easier asked than answered ; for when you pull them 



off, you find they won't lie flat, by 

 any means, but are each of them 

 cups, or rather shells, themselves ; 

 and that it requires as much con- 

 chology as would describe a cockle, 

 before you can properly give ac- 

 count of a single poppy leaf. Or of 

 a single any leaf for all leaves are 

 either shells, or boats, (or solid, if 

 not hollow, masses,) and cannot be 

 represented in flat outline. But, 

 laying these as flat as they will lie 

 on a sheet of paper, you will find the 

 piece they hide of the paper they lie 



on can be drawn ; giving approximately the shape of the outer 

 leaf as at A, that of the inner as at B, Fig. 4 ; which you will 



* Just in time, finding a heap of gold under an oak tree some thou- 

 sand years old, near Aruiidel, I've made them out : Eight divided by 

 three ; that is to say, three couples of petals, with two odd little ones 

 inserted for form's sake. No wonder I couldn't decipher them bj 

 memory. 



