or in a Poppy beginning - to open. Yet it is not to be 
regarded as absolutely essential to the idea of a flower, 
for many flowers have no envelope whatever. But in 
the flowers of perfect plants the calyx is very gene- 
rally present under one modification or other; — name- 
ly, that of the flower cup, the glume, or scale. 
Cap, or Pile. — Of the Stipitate Fungi a great many are fur- 
nished with a sort of conical or flattened production 
surmounting the stipe, and attached to it at right an- 
gles, sometimes by the centre, and sometimes by the 
one side. This production has obtained the appella- 
tion of the cap or pileus, which its figure suggests, and 
may be exemplified in Agaricus campestris, the true 
Mushroom. 
Capillary. — Applied to parts when they are long, fine, and 
flexible. 
Capsule. — The capsule is a dry and membranaceous pericarp, 
opening, when ripe, in some definite and determinate 
manner, but separating, for the most part, into valves. 
It is one valved, as in Primula ; two-valved, as in 
Circcea, many valved as in Oxalis, or without valves 
as in Fraxims. 
Carina. — The carina, or keel, is a term employed by botanists, 
to denote the lower petal of the corolla of a papilion- 
aceous flower, from its resemblance to the carina or 
keel of a boat. 
Carinated. — Expressive of leaves and petals, when the back 
is longitudinally prominent like the keel of a boat. 
Carpellum.— Upon the morphological principles of Goethe, 
for a time contemned and neglected, but now adopted 
and illustrated by the most eminent of modern phy- 
tologists, Decandolle, Brown, Du Petit, Thouars, and 
others — the pistil of every flower is to be regarded as 
being but a leaf metamorphosed into an ovary with 
its accompaniments. The expansion of the leaf, by 
the union of its margins rolled inwards, forms the 
ovary, the mid-rib extended and expanded to a due 
length and thickness, forms the style, and its “denuded 
secreting, and humid apex,” forms the stigma. The 
leaf thus metamorphosed, is a carpellum, and where 
there are more pistils than one to a flower, they spring 
from a whirl of leaves, and are carpella, each having 
its own style and stigma, and each being furnished 
with a placenta, originating in some point of the ven- 
tral suture. Lindley’s Introd. to Bot. 144. 
Caruncules. — Caruncules or strophiolae, are small and fun- 
gous lumps, or tubercles, situated near the umbi- 
licus of certain seeds. The genus Euphorbia fur- 
nishes a curious example of a caruncule that covers the 
foramen. 
Caryopsis. — By this term botanists denominate a peculiar 
species of pericarp, dry, indehiscent, one-celled, one- 
seeded, superior, and adhering inseparably to the 
proper integument of the seeds, as in Triticum. 
Catkin. — The catkin is a species of inflorescence, consisting 
of an assemblage of incomplete flowers, that is, flowers 
destitute of calyx, or of corolla, or of both, but fur- 
nished with a scale-like bract, which attaches them to 
a common and elongated receptacle. It was regarded 
formerly by Linnaeus and many of his followers as a 
species of calyx, but we believe that no botanist re- 
gards it now in that light. It is exemplified in the 
very familiar cases of the inflorescence of the Birch 
and Willow. 
Caudex. — The term caudex seems to have been employed by 
the Latin classics to signify merely the stem or trunk 
of a tree. Linnaeus employed it to denote the main 
stock or axis of the plant, as resulting from the full 
growth and developement both of the radicle and of 
the plumelet. Hence it is divisible into two distinct 
portions, the caudex ascendens, and the caudex de- 
scended, the former corresponding to the trunk or 
stem, the latter to the root. 
Cauline. — Springing from, or attached to the stem. 
Cellular Tissue. — The cellular tissue or pulp, is a soft and 
succulent substance, constituting the principle mass 
of herbaceous plants, and a notable proportion of many 
parts even of woody plants. 
Cellulares. — This term, which is nearly equivalent to the 
Cryptogamia of Linnaeus, or to the Acotyledones of 
Jussieu, is now very generally employed by botanists 
to denote the first branch of that grand and primary 
division of vegetables, by which they are distributed 
into plants, composed merely of cells on the one hand, 
and plants composed both of cells and vessels on the 
other. 
Centrifugal Inflorescence. — If the main axis of the inflo- 
rescence of any particular species, terminates in a 
flower, while the other flowers issue from lateral buds, 
originating in the axil of inferior leaves or bractes, 
and producing a branch or peduncle that carries them 
from the centre outwards, then the inflorescence of 
that species is said to be centrifugal, as in the case of 
the genus Euphorbia, and the upper flowers are the 
first to expand. 
Centripetal Inflorescence. — If the main axis of the inflo- 
rescence of any particular species is furnished with a 
connected succession of flowers, originating directly 
in the axis, but without bractes, as in the catkin of the 
Hazel, or raceme of the Currant, so that the flowers 
are developed from the circumference inwards, then, 
the inflorescence of that species is said to be centri- 
petal, and the flowers at the base are the first to expand. 
Channelled. — Applied to leaves, stalks, or petioles, having 
grooves or longitudinal furrows on their surface. 
Chromule. — The pulp constituting the parenchyma of the 
leaves was at one time designated by the appellation 
of viridine, because it is generally of a green colour; 
but as it is not always of a green colour, M. Decan- 
dolle has thought it better to apply to it the appel- 
' lation of Chromule, indicating that it is the substance 
from which the leaf or flower derives its colour, whether 
green or otherwise. It is certain that the membrane 
composing the cells has no colour but what it borrows 
from the. contained pulp, which has itself no colour 
till it is exposed to the action of the direct rays of the 
sun, elaborating the nutriment that it derives, whether 
from the ascending cap, or from the decomposition of 
carbonic acid gas, or from the direct assimilation of 
Oxygen. 
Ciliated. — When parts are covered with soft parallel hairs, not 
closely set together. 
Cirrose. — Circinate. — Tipped with a cirrus or tendril. 
Claw. — The base or lower portion of the petal of a poly-pe- 
talous flower is denominated the claw. In some flow- 
ers it is extremely short, serving merely as a point of 
attachment to the receptacle, as in the Rose, in others 
it is long and conspicuous, as in the Pink. 
Cleft. — Divided into parts, as, two-cleft, four- cleft, and so on. 
Climbing Stems. — Climbing stems are stems which attach 
themselves by means of roots, or of other peculiar or- 
gans, to other plants or to other bodies for support, 
not being of themselves sufficiently strong to assume, 
or to maintain the upright position, such are the stems 
of the Vine and Ivy. 
Clostres. — The spindle-shaped tubes of Dutrochet, whose of- 
fice it is to conduct the descending and elaborated 
sap or cambium. 
Cloven. — When the margin or segments of any part are nearly 
straight lines. 
Clubbed. — When parts are thicker towards their extremities 
than in the centre. 
Cluster. — A species of inflorescence, consisting of an assem- 
blage of flowers, supported upon their own proper pe- 
dicles, and attached to a common and elongated axis, 
it is exemplified in the Currant. 
