Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/277

 Rh would surely be more proper than involucrum or involucellum, as is evident from a consideration of the inflorescence of the whole genus, so very different in different species. In E. Peplis, and many others, the flowers are solitary and axillary; in others again, as E. amygdaloides, Engl. Bot. t. 256, and Characias, t. 442, some flower-stalks are umbellate, some scattered; and the subdivisions of the umbel in all are ultimately forked, that is, of a nature between umbellate and scattered. This genus has, moreover, a proper calyx or perianthium of a most distinct and peculiar nature. Some species of Anemone, a genus destitute of a perianthium, are said by Linnæus to have an involucrum, as A. Pulsatilla, t. 51, for which the name of bractea would be vastly more correct, though in A. Hepatica, Curt. Mag. t. 10, it is placed so near the flower as to seem a part of it, which, however, is really not the case.

The name of Involucrum is applied by Gleditsch to the membrane covering the fructification of ferns; nor have I, in