of the Aquilegia vulgaris. 5 



Tropoiolum, or the Lark's-spur. The great German poet's 

 notions had not indeed at tirst all possible suceess in this 

 country. Willdenow always asserted that the spur [calcar) 

 was more an organ intended to preserve the nectar than to 

 prepare it, and that it was furthermore a sacciform elongation 

 of the corolline corona*. The first of these facts is evidently 

 erroneous. The second was also admitted by Jacquin. 



Sprengelj when opposing Vaillant, who had also himself 

 declared that the nectary was always a production of the 

 corolla, placed the spurs of the Columbine in his class of Nec~ 

 tarothecce, and characterized by the presence of the secreting 

 gland at the bottom of the cornet. Moreover, it never occurred 

 to his mind to investigate the anterior nature of this appara- 

 tus in the Passiflorea, in the Aconites, and a multitude of 

 other plants ; he sees only peculiar little machines, more or 

 less ornamented : machinulce peculiares eleganter co- 

 lor atce ■\. 



DeCandolle, in 1819, adopts this view of the subject; but 

 the spur, according to him, is of a very different nature, — 

 an elongation, one while of the calyx, one while of the corolla, 

 one while of the perigoniura ; but the stamens are still ex- 

 cluded from the floral organs which may produce this nec- 

 tary J. However, a year before, the celebrated botanist of Ge- 

 neva had positively declared that, in the Aquilegice corniculatce, 

 without regard to species, the supplementary spurs arose from 

 a modification of the anthers which lengthened downwards ; 

 moreover, he recognises the origin of the stellated varieties 

 from the abortion of the anthers, and from the hypertrophy 

 of the filaments ; and lastly, that the scales which are situated 

 between the carpels and the stamens are stamens without 

 anthers, and wdth dilated and membranous filaments^. Biria 

 had made known the former facts ||. In 1827 these ideas were 

 again brought forward in the Organographie vegetale^. They 

 are, undeniably, the most accordant to the real state of 

 things. 



Among the most recent authors we may mention Kurr, 

 who places the spurs of the Columbine with his nectarostig- 

 mata. A very curious remark of this accurate writer is, that 

 the greenish glands which secrete the nectar at the bottom of 



* Willdenow. Grundriss der Krauterkunde, cap. 86-88. (Terminologie.) 

 f Linnsei Phil. Bot. edit. Spvengel (notes). Fructificatio 110. 

 X DeCandolle. Theorie elementaire, p. 406, § 395. 

 § DeCandolle. Systema Regni Vegetabilis, vol, i. p. 333. 

 II Biria. Histoire naturelle et medicale desR^noncules, 1 fasc. Montpellier, 

 1811. 



II DeCandolle. Oiganographie, vol. i. pp. 484 — 496. 



