212 GENERAL BOTANY 



urceolate, if of a companulate shape but the mouth 

 contracted, and of smaller diameter than the rest, as 

 the corolla of ERICA the Heather, and VACCINIUM 

 the Bilberry, and GAULTHERIA. 



There are many cases, of course, in which the shape 

 cannot be described so si-mply, and a combination of 

 these terms, or some further explanation is necessary. 

 Thus the corolla of TABERN^MONTANA CORONARIA, is 

 described as ' salver-shaped, the tube slender, inflated 

 at the middle '. In such a flower the places at which 

 such sudden broadening or inflation of the tube 

 occurs is termed the throat, the open end of the 

 corolla being its mouth. 



In some flowers it may be more convenient to de- 

 scribe the petals separately from the corolla, when the 

 same terms are used as for the leaves (chapter xii, sec. 2). 



IRREGULAR FLOWERS 



4. All irregular flowers bend over slightly so that 

 the posterior side is also the upper and the anterior 

 side the lower, and these terms are used even more 

 than posterior and anterior. 



The plane of symmetry is nearly always through 

 the axis (pedicel) and peduncle, from posterior to 

 anterior, not from right to left, the posterior or upper 

 side being larger or smaller than the anterior or 

 lower, but the right and left halves exactly similar. 

 Only in a very few is the plane of symmetry across 

 from right to left in FUMARIA (Fumitory), CORYDALIS, 

 CYCLAMEN and others of that family. And in still 

 fewer the plane of symmetry is neither, but oblique 

 (MALPIGHIACE^, SOLANACE^E). 



