Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 10.djvu/26



Dr. SMITH&apos;s Characters of a new Liliaceous Genus If the petals of Gnidia prove Daphne to have a coloured calyx, these correspondent parts in the liliaceæ must receive correspondent names. Jussieu therefore is consistent when he denominates the analogous part in the liliaceæ and in Daphne a calyx, and so is Linnæus when he calls it in both instances a corolla; but the latter errs against all consistency and analogy when he terms calyx in Gnidia what he had, in the preceding page, named corolla in Daphne. Mr. Salisbury's rule, given in the first paper of our 8th volume, that the stamens are never inserted into the calyx, is one of the best upon the subject, yet not without its difficulties, some of which, from a love of truth alone, I beg leave to suggest. If we admit this rule in rosaceous flowers, and the more I have thought on the subject the more I feel disposed to do so, we can hardly allow it in Ribes, whose whole faded calyx, perfectly homogeneous and indivisible, sticks to the top of the fruit, retaining the withered petals and stamens, which are together inserted into its sides. If we say analogy proves the lower half of this pretended calyx to be a receptacle, a similar mode of reasoning will prove the tube of Pancratium, Narcissus, Tulbaghia, and of my Brodiæa to be a receptable also, the limb only being the calyx, and the crown a corolla. If this be granted, the lower part of the corolla, as it is usually called, in Hemerocallis, Agapanthus, Amaryllis, Hyacinthus, &c.; even the claws of such few, if any, polypetalous liliaceæ as really have their stamens inserted there, must also be a receptacle, and the upper part a calyx; which is too paradoxical to be allowed. I say nothing of the spatha belonging to some of these liliaceous genera, because even when present I do not think it can invalidate my argument. Their generic characters are independent of it, as those of the umbelliferæ are of their involucra and involucella. I have therefore, in describing the