336 MORPHOLOGY. 



same time agree in internal structure." Such a convention among 

 botanists, did it actually rxi>t, would be. a foolish agreement to obscure, 

 nature instead (!' comprehending her better. As 1 have, before said, wo 

 do not make the forms with our ideas, but receive them from nature; 

 and our object is to learn to understand nature, to divide where, she 

 divides, and to leave united what she herself does not distinguish. If, 

 then, nature herself exhibits to us a certain complication of foliar 

 organs united into one general form, and thus separating themselves 

 from the. other foliar organs, on this account, and not in consequence. 

 of a convention altOg6th6T valueless for the perception of nature, do \ve 

 distinguish the Moral envelopes as special organs. On that point, how- 

 ever, whereon the concurrence of botanists has to decide, namely, what 

 word shall be applied to denominate the organ distinguished by nature, 

 they have not, Unfortunately, coiiie to an agreement, just from the fact 

 that they are altogether destitute of the correct principle of investi- 

 gation. That nature gives us flowers in definite general form, in the 

 J'lKUH'rui/iinnd, is certain ; and just as certain is it that these flowers 

 frequently consist, externally of one or more eircles of foliar organs 

 not essentially altered; that when many of these foliar organs are 

 present, these are developed either similarly or dissimilarly; that they 

 are sometimes all green, sometimes all bright-coloured, sometimes partly 

 green, sometimes partly bright-coloured: which are all i'acts, not derived 

 from us, but from nature. When these, variations have to be named, 

 and this is in general an arbitrary matter, the certainty of scientific 

 language requires an universal agreement, from which variety and the, 

 desire of novelty of the individual, cannot detach itself without stepping 

 as a direct stumbling-block into the path of science. These terms must 

 not be. SO chosen that like things have different names, dilferent things 

 like names. If the outer circle of ditl'erent foliar organs is called a 

 calyx, several circles of similar organs must not receive the same name. 

 The first thing is to find out what forms nature gives us ; the second is to 

 give these names ; and here scientific language demands, for its safety, 

 the most rigid logical consequence. 



What Ach. Richard says about the floral envelopes of Monocotyledons 

 is scarcely grounded on even the most superficial observation, but rather 

 a pure arbitrary invention, to support his equally arbitrary subdivision 

 of the Moral envelopes. He says, " Although the six segments of the floral 

 envelopes of the Monocotyledons stand in two rows, yet they form only 

 a single circle on the summit of the pedicel which bean them ; that is, 

 they have only one common point of origin on the receptacle, and 

 evidently all six develope from the outer parts of the pedicel." In these 

 last words it is evident that Linna-us's fancy of the import of the bark, 

 liber, wood, and pith, in the origin of the parts of the (lower, was in view, 

 and yet with ridiculous want of consistency ; since Richard himself 

 explains all floral envelopes, therefore also the corolla, as foliar or- 

 gans, and all foliar organs arise on the stem in the very same way, 

 and not some from the outer and others from the inner parts. I will not 

 refer to the course of development here, which at once shows how 

 groundless Richard's assertion is; it is sufficient to call to recollection a 

 Commclina or a Tradescantia, where three and three floral envelopes 

 originate as evidently at dilferent heights upon the receptacle, as can be 

 the case in any calyx and corolla of a Dicotyledonous plant. 



What causes the greatest ditliculty in the accurate and certain applica- 

 tion of names is what has to be understood as similar and dissimilar. 



