162 
POPULA.R SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ever it does occur, it is looked on quite as an exceptional cir- 
cumstance. 
Now the calyx is universally admitted to consist of (modified) 
leaves ; but if this urn-shaped mass, whose nature we are con- 
sidering, consists of leaves, as the term calyx-tube implies, 
we have, as a constant occurrence, the production of other 
leaves in great numbers, and with great regularity from it. 
Cut the flower through its centre from below upwards, and it 
will be seen that from the top and inner surface of this urn spring 
the petals and all that series of threads and rings which makes up 
the crown.” Is it likely from what we know of the manners 
and customs of leaves, that they would give off all these varied 
outgrowths ? It is quite possible that they might do so, but that is 
not the question. Is it probable ? We think, having regard to 
general usage as above stated, that it is not. There are other 
reasons of too abstruse a character to be entered into fully here, 
which lead us to the opinion, that this urn is no calyx-tube pro- 
perly so called, but that it consists of the top of the flo weir-stalk, 
the thalamus, or receptacle, as it is technically called, which 
grows in this peculiar urn-like form, and gives off from its top 
and its sides, as a properly conducted thalamus always does, the 
several organs of the flower of which mention has been made. 
Though it would be out of place to give the details which have led 
to this conclusion, we may say that they are based on a con- 
sideration of the way in which the urn grows from babydom to 
maturity, which is after the fashion in which branches grow gene- 
rally, (the thalamus or receptacle is only the end of a branch,) 
and from an examination of the microscopical structure, which 
is more akin to that of a branch than that of a leaf. Still, if in 
these notes we occasionally call the urn a calyx-tube, we must 
plead excuse that it is so called in all descriptive books, and that 
expediency often urges the retention of a particular name when 
absolute correctness would banish it. As the question is to some 
extent one of words only, and the above confession and expla- 
nation have been made, it is to be hoped that if, for the sake of 
conformity with old customs, the word calyx-tube is here some- 
times used, the writer will not be set down as more incon- 
sistent than his fellows in general, with whom it is certainly 
not an unusual thing to say one thing and mean another, and 
this in no evil sense. 
Then a question arises as to the nature of that extraordinary, 
and often beiiutiful, apparatus of threads and knobs and fringes 
which collectively form the “ corona.” They occupy an inter- 
mediate position between the petals and the stamens ; and 
hence, while some have considered them to pertain to the one 
series, others have allotted them to the other ; while a third set of 
speculators have run with the hare and hunted with the hounds. 
