
THE LILIES OF THE FIELDS, ETC. 301 
element of their beauty. We conclude, then, that the form 
or plan of the flower, which is the same in all, is the element 
which above all others influences the beauty of these objects. 
This plan is here represented in a diagram (Fig. 54) wherein 
the leaves of the calyx are marked a; those of the corolla, 
6; the stamens, c; PR 
and the pistils, d. 
In this diagram the 
perfect regularity 
of these flowers is 
more easily noticed 
than in the draw- 
ings of the differ- 
ent flowers them- 
selves ; for the dia- 
gram is the flower 
stripped of all its 
specific peculiari- 
ties superposedand 
ingrafted upon the 
general plan. We 
See from this dia- 
gram better still than from the figure of Scilla, that the calyx 
does not mer ely consist of three equal leaves, but that they 
‘re so placed around the axis, or stalk of the flower, that 
they, two and two, include the same angle between them, so 
as to produce a triangle (a, a, a), the sides of which are of 
“qual length; such a triangle is called an equilateral one. 
1e same is true in regard to the next series of three leaves, 
b, b, b, constituting the corolla of the flower; but not only 
do the calyx and the corolla form equilateral triangles but 
they are so placed that the leaves of the one fall exactly mid- 
Ways between those of the other. If the calyx be repre- 
Sented by a triangle, with its vertex upward, the corolla will 
be a triangle with the vertex downward. But both trian- 
Sles, on account of this peculiar relative position, perfectly 

