Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 8 (1807).djvu/23

Rh indeed, yet generally so distinct as to merit, both from its appearance and the dignity of its office, a particular name: for, in this common point I suspect all the necessary changes in the vessels to produce the various parts of the flower and fruit first begin. I have long called it Torus, to distinguish it from the Receptaculum of Aggregate and Syngenesious flowers: the real structure of the latter I have yet to learn, but Aggregate flowers appear to me nothing more than a close mode of Inflorescentia. Adanson has the merit of having first described this common point of insertion by the name of Diske. The period at which he published his book, was particularly unfavourable to the study of Natural Families, few having been then learned enough in Botany to understand it, and those few who might have understood it, disgusted by the uncouth spelling, barbarous names, and sharp attacks on the Sexual System then shining forth in all its glory. I am also ashamed to own, that for many years I never looked into the Familles des plantes, regarding them with the same contempt as our President has thrown upon them in his preliminary Discourse printed in the first volume of our Transactions. The solid information they contain, however, has since taught me to think very differently; and the honest and patient labourer in the mine of Natural History, may always have this satisfaction, that the value of what he discovers, will, at one period or another, be fully appreciated and understood. In hopes of meeting with something respecting this common Point of Insertion, I have just read Mirbel's Traité d'Anatomie et de Physiologie Végétale; but he says little more than that it is a part of the Calyx, and is totally silent as to its connecting the different parts of the flower: this is the more wonderful, as he must have dissected many of the flowers which I shall presently have occasion to mention.

In distinguishing the Calyx and Corolla, he is far more explicit, Rh