CORONET. 
which most wild plants are admired and the great 
majority of ornamental plants are cultivated. 
The corolla consists either of one piece or pe- 
tal, and is monopetalous, or of several pieces or 
petals, and is polypetalous. A monopetalous 
corolla may be bell-shaped, funnel-shaped, club- 
shaped, hood-shaped, or wheel-shaped, or may 
possess any one of many varieties of intermediate 
form; yet, in every instance, it is regarded as 
consisting of three parts,—tube, mouth, and bor- 
der. The tube is the lowest part, and is usually 
cylindrical and open; the mouth or throat is the 
middle part, and is often so pubescent or scaly 
as to be almost choked up; and the border is the 
outmost, and usually possesses the most marked 
characters of both shape and tinting. A poly- 
petalous corolla may be cruciform, butterfly- 
shaped, rosaceous, five-winged, or six-winged, or 
may exhibit any one of numerous diversities in 
either the disposition, the relative proportions, 
or the individual forms of its petals; yet each of 
its petals, whatever be their number, their ag- 
gregate contour, or their individual character, is 
regarded as consisting of two parts,—a lower one 
or claw, and an upper one or border. 
Any corolla which is accompanied by a calyx, 
and which is itself delicate in texture, brilliant 
in colour, and comparatively large in size, differs 
from every other leafy part of the plant in re- 
fusing to decompose carbonic acid, and in dealing 
with atmospheric air exactly as it is dealt with 
by the lungs of animals; and it may be regarded 
as exerting some special influence upon the en- 
closed reproductive organs, and as itself enjoying 
protection and support from the calyx. Yet,in the 
very numerous instances in which the corolla is 
inconspicuous, or in which only one whorl en- 
velopes the reproductive organs, no difference of 
function between corolla and calyx can be ob- 
served to exist. The occasional difficulty of de- 
ciding whether a one-whorled envelope be a co- 
rolla or a calyx is sometimes expounded by a 
series of not very intelligible rules, sometimes 
evaded by applying to the envelope the ambigu- 
ous name of perianth, and sometimes summarily 
disposed of by pronouncing every one-whorled 
envelope to be a calyx. See the article Canyx. 
CORONET. The small pastern bone, or lowest 
part of the pastern, of a horse’s foot. It articu- 
lates with the coffin and the navicular bones ; 
and is united to both by the capsular and the 
lateral ligaments. The coronary ligament is a 
prolongation of the skin, or a vascular expansion, 
projecting and extending around the coronet to 
the back of the frog, possessing in its texture a 
great profusion of small blood-vessels, and form- 
ing from these vessels the secretion which con- 
stitutes the hoof, or crust, or wall of the foot. 
The coronary ring is a membrane which covers 
the coronary ligament, and extends round the 
upper portion of the hoof. 
CORONILLA. A genus of ornamental plants, 
of the hedysarum division of the leguminous or- 
CORRAIA. 
871 
der. The scorpion-senna species, or jointed-pod- 
ded colutea, Coronilla Hmerus, is a native of the 
south of France, and was introduced to Britain 
near the end of the 16th century. It is a hardy 
deciduous shrub; but though an old and not in- 
frequent member of shrubberies, it is by no means 
so generally cultivated as it deserves. Its usual 
height is from 3 to 6 inches; its branches are 
numerous and irregular, and abound near the 
ground as well as toward the top; the bark of 
the older branches is greyish, and that of the 
younger is smooth and dark brown; the leaves 
are pinnated, each consisting of three pairs of 
folioles and a terminating odd one, and they have 
a pleasant green colour, and possess great aggre- 
gate beauty; and the flowers have a yellowish 
colour, are large in proportion to the shrub, ap- 
pear from April till June, and come out on long 
footstalks, and in groups of two or three on each 
footstalk, all along the sides of the branches be- 
side the leaves. “ Beautiful as the leaves are,” 
remarks Marshall, “it is the flowers which con- 
stitute the beauty of this shrub; and indeed of 
all the shrubby tribe, there is none more striking 
or pleasing than this when in full blow. This 
usually happens in May, when it will be covered 
all over with bloom, the shrub itself appearing as 
one large flower divided into many loose spikes.” 
And, says Loudon in his Arboretum, “The min- 
gling of yellow flowers with flower-buds more or 
less red, and the elegant foliage, renders this 
hardy shrub a very desirable one for its beauty.” 
Another recommendation of it is that it fre- 
quently flowers again in autumn. A variety of 
it, of lower growth than the normal plant, is 
known as the dwarf scorpion-senna. — Fifteen 
other species, all more or less hardy, all decidedly 
ornamental, and chiefly natives of countries ad- 
jacent to the Mediterranean, are cultivated in 
British gardens; and some more species are 
known to botanists, but have not yet been intro- 
duced. One of the introduced species, the Cre- 
tan, is a striped-flowered annual; three, with re- 
spectively pink, white, and yellow flowers, are 
herbaceous trailers; one with yellow flowers, and 
two with white flowers, are perennial-rooted | 
herbs; two are yellow-flowered evergreen herbs; 
and the remaining six are yellow-flowered ever- 
green shrubs. 
CORONOPUS. See Pranrarn and Wart-Cruss, 
CORRAA. A genus of beautiful, evergreen, 
Australian shrubs, of the rue tribe. They follow 
the type of the Cape diosmas, and have become 
conspicuous ornaments of almost every good Brit- 
ish greenhouse. The first known species, C. alba, 
was introduced from Australia in 1793; and four 
other species, C. virens, C. speciosa, O. rufa and 
C. pulchella, were introduced before 1825. Two of 
these species carry white flowers, one scarlet flow- 
ers, one green flowers, and one scarlet and green 
flowers; and they vary in height from 3 to 8 feet. 
A more recently introduced species, C. dzcolor, is 
one of the best habited and most beautiful of the 
