OF THE NECTARY AND HONEY. 203 



served in this flower, the rapid combination of oxygen 

 gas with the carbon of the plant; an hypothesis 

 hardly adequate to explain either. 



Nectar him ^ the Nectary, may be defined that part 

 of the Corolla which contains or which secretes 

 honey. It is perhaps in effect nearly universal, as 

 hardly a flower can be found that has not more or less 

 honey, though that liquor is far from being universally, 

 or even generally, formed by an apparatus separate 

 from the Petals. In monopetalous flowers, as Lamium 

 album, the Dead Nettle, t. 768, the tube of the corolla 

 contains, and probably secretes, the honey, without any 

 evident Nectary. Sometimes the part under considera- 

 tion is a production or elongation of the Corolla, as in 

 Violets; sometimes indeed of the Calyx, as in the Gar- 

 den Nasturtium, Tropfsolmn, Curt. Mag. t. 23 and 

 98, whose coloured Calyx, /. 170, partakes much of 

 the nature of the petals. Sometimes it is distinct from 

 both, either resembling the petals, as in Aquilegia, 

 j\ 171, Engl. Bot. t. 297, or more different, as in 

 Eplmedium, f. 172, 173, t. 438, Hdleboras, t. 200 

 and 613, Aconitum, the common Monkshood, and 

 Delphinium, the Larkspur. Such at least is the mode 

 in which Linnaeus and his followers understand the 

 four last-mentioned flowers ; but we have already 

 hinted that Jussieu is of a different opinion, and he 

 even calls the decided Nectary of Eplmedhim an in- 

 ternal petal ! Difficulties attend both theories. It seems 

 paradoxical to call petals those singular bodies in 



