MORE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS. 123 



an ovary of three chambers, with one style in 

 common. Several of the amaryllids are such 

 familiar flowers that I shall venture to describe 

 them as illustrative examples. 



The snowdrop is an amaryllid which blossoms 

 in early spring, and which shows in a simple 

 form the chief features of the family. It has six 

 perianth-pieces, but these are still distinctly 

 recognisable as calyx and corolla. The three 

 sepals are large and pure white, and they 

 enclose the petals ; the three petals are dis- 

 tinctly smaller, and tipped with green in a very 

 pretty fashion. The summer snowflake, com- 

 monly cultivated in old-fashioned gardens, is 

 very like the snowdrop, only here the difference 

 between sepals and petals has disappeared ; all 

 six pieces form one apparent row, white, tipped 

 with green, in a single perianth. 



In the daffodils and narcissuses we get a 

 second group of amaryllids more advanced and 

 developed. Here the six perianth-pieces are 

 almost alike, though they may still be distin- 

 guished as sepals and petals by a careful ob- 

 server. But the perianth, which is tubular 

 below, divides above into six lobes, beyond 

 which it is prolonged again into what is called 

 a crown, whose real nature can only be under- 

 stood by comparison with such other flowers as 

 the campions, where scales are inserted on the 

 tip of the petals. This crown is comparatively 

 little developed in the narcissus and the jonquil; 

 but in the daffodil it has become by far the 

 largest and most conspicuous part of the entire 

 flower, so as completely to hide the bee who 



