2.52 



THE FLOWKR. 



468. In the Apple, Hawthorn (Fig. 390), and many other plants, 

 the consolidation extends farther, and the calyx is adnate to, i. e. 



invests and coheres with the 

 whole surface of the ovary, 

 which accordingly appears 

 to be under the rest of the 

 flower, instead of the upper- 

 most and innermost part, as 

 it properly is. The earlier 

 botanists called the flower, 

 or calyx, in such cases, supe- 

 rior, and the ovary and fruit 

 inferior ; and when no such consolidation occurs, the flower, or 

 calyx, &e. was said to be inferior, and the ovary superior. But 

 these terms should be superseded by the equivalent and much more 

 appropriate expressions of calyx adherent, in the one case, and calyx 

 free, in the other ; or by that of ovary coherent with the calyx, and 

 ovary free from the calyx, which is the same tiling in other words.* 

 More commonly the corolla and the stamens are adnate to the 

 calyx bej'ond where these parts all separate from the pistil ; in which 

 case they are still perigynous, or borne on the calyx. In some 

 such cases, as in the Evening Primrose and Fuchsia, the tube of 

 the calyx is prolonged far beyond the ovary, and the petals and 

 stamens are inserted on it just below where it separates into its 

 distinct lobes. 



469. In other flowers the petals and the stamens are distinct at 

 the line ivhere the calyx separates from the top of the ovary, or are 

 borne on the edge or face of a thickened disc (489) -which crowns its 

 summit, as in Aralia (Fig. 410), the Ivy, and all that family, in the 

 whole Parsley family, the Cornel family, the Cranberry (Fig. 391), 

 and the like. The stamens, &c., being then apparently borne on the 

 ovary, are said to be epigynous (from two Greek words meaning 

 "on the pistil"). 



* A favorite view at present is that the calyx in many cases (as in the Kose, 

 Apple, &c.) actually begins at the place where it is distinct from the parts with- 

 in, and that the so-called tube is the summit of the peduncle hollowed out, or 

 developed around the pistils. This view can be correct in certain cases only, 

 and the difference between it and the current view is really not so great as it 

 seems. 



FIG. 390. Flower of Hawthorn vertically divided, to show the calyx adnate to the ovary. 



