EXPLANATION OF TERMS. 
As these pages are intended for the use and assistance of 
the unlearned cultivator, as well as for the edification of the 
scientific, I wish to premise a few words concerning some 
terms which will be used in them. It has been justly con- 
sidered that, in plants which, like the Amaryllideae, have no 
calyx, the outer divisions or segments of the flower stand in 
lieu of calyx, and the inner of corolla, and such a flower is 
called a perianth, the outer or calycine segments sepals, the 
inner or corolline segments petals. The number of filaments 
being equal to those segments at or below the base of which 
they are usually inserted, I propose to call those which belong 
to the outer segments the sepaline filaments, and those which 
belong to the inner the petaline filaments. I find a great 
laxity in the language of botanists in defining flowers which 
have a tubular appearance, though perhaps no tube at all, 
which they call indiscriminately tubular, tubulosi, so that it 
cannot be ascertained from their definitions whether the peri- 
anth is really tubular or divided to the base. I propose to 
rectify this by the following appropriation of distinct terms; 
tubatus, tubed or having a tube, whether long or short ; tubu- 
losus, long-tubed ; tubiformis, tube-shaped, or having the sem- 
blance of a tube ; tubaeformis, trumpet-shaped : and I hope 
that such a necessary distinction may be observed in all fu- 
ture definitions. I find also that it is not possible from the 
definitions of any botanist to ascertain with certainty whether 
a perianth is really divided or not, as they are in the habit of 
calling flowers trifid or six-cleft, tripartite or sexpartite, of 
which the segments are connected at the base ; I shall call the 
perianth sexpartite where the segments are unconnected, deeply 
B 
