THE IDENTIFICATION OF PLANTS 107 



naked stem which bears at its summit a single 

 rather large, nodding flower. The flower has 

 six divisions all alike, yellow or tinged with 

 purple on the outside and with their tips some- 

 what bent back. You hardly know whether to 

 call them a corolla or a calyx. When, as in 

 this case, there is only one distinguishable 

 floral envelope, some botanists always call it 

 a calyx, however brilliantly colored it may be ; 

 but the most learned are in somewhat the same 

 uncertainty as you and it is more usual to beg 

 the question by calling it a perianth which 

 is Greek for "around the flower" and is a gen- 

 eral term for all floral envelopes, including 

 both calyx and corolla. Within, the flower has 

 a single pistil and six stamens. 



A glance at the end of Mathews's Field Book 

 shows that it contains about 550 plates, many 

 of which illustrate more than one species 

 nearly 700 pictures in all. This is nothing to 

 the more than 4,000 species described in techni- 

 cal floras ; but it seems a melancholy number of 

 pictures to scan in your search and you nat- 

 urally hope your plant may come somewhere 

 near the middle of the book. 



