196 PHYTOGRAPHIC EXPRESSIONS AND ARRANGEMENTS. 



Nutlets ; to which from here have now been added : Hairlets, 

 Bristlets, Headlets, Suturules and Fruitlets. It is also worthy of 

 remark, that Lamarck has already obj ected to the term hermaphrodite 

 as applied to plants, in that leaf-sheaths are only clasping leafstalks 

 whether of Glumacese, TJmbelliferse or any other kind of plants ; 

 that spathes are amply developed bracts or altered floral leaves, 

 that a spadix represents only some peculiar form of a spike, that 

 glumes are simply bracts and palese are so also, whether of Composite 

 or Gramineee ; that Yexillum or Standard, as well as Wings and 

 Carina or Keel of papilionaceous flowers are as much petals, as 

 any other ; therefore all these terms have, as cumbersome and 

 superfluous for an elementary work, been discarded in the " Key." 

 So early a writer as Fabius Columna has already adopted the word 

 Capitulum for "flower-head" or headlet ; in French it is also 

 Capitule, in German Koepfchen, in Italian Capolino, all diminutives. 

 It must seem odd, particularly so to any tyro, when we speak of 

 a starchy or horny Albumen, so contrary to all his preconceived 

 notions. Certainly the verbal alteration proposed is but a trifling 

 one, nor did the expression Albumentum arise from a classic 

 scholar of high standing,— it originated with Publius Vegetius — ■ 

 but as Scheller, Luenemann and some other Lexicographers refer 

 to the word, it can be rendered available for our new purpose. 

 Very different is it with the term placentarium, for it emanated 

 from so high an authority as that of Mirbel. It might be 

 contended that such words as ribs, mouths and head do not 

 exclusively belong to the domain of zoology, and that through the 

 systematic names of plants they have become permanently identified 

 with botanic science as a whole ; with regret the latter part of the 

 proposition must be conceded ; but it might also as well be argued, 

 that it would be preferable to call the mouth and head of rivers 

 their entrance and source, though the extension of the term ribs 

 to some of the framework of ships and boats must be admitted. 

 Although the expression "Wings" exists also in architectural and 

 military and even musical language, and although we may speak 

 figuratively of the teeth of machinery and implements, these are 

 not reasons against discarding any ambiguous or illogical terms from 

 our bio-systematology. Possibly it might in the opinion of some 

 systematists be preferable to construct altogether new words 

 instead of such as are similar ; but of measures of this kind botanic 

 science has been too prone already, particularly in recent times. 

 While tentatively these changes in organography are introduced 

 into our Australian Phytography, no one even here is prevented 

 from adhering to — the certainly somewhat antiquated — so-called 

 glossology in our particular branch of knowledge ; nor can an 

 abolition of terms, clearly not the best, impair the utilisation of 

 a mere "primer-publication." At all events, science cannot stand 



