"What is a trillium?" asked Ethel Brown.
"Roger brought in a handful the other day. 'Wake-robin' he called it."
"O, I remember them. There was a bare stalk with three leaves and the flower was under the leaves."
"There were three petals to the corolla and three sepals to the calyx. He had purple ones and white ones."
"Here's a white one this very minute," said Dorothy, pouncing upon a plant eight or ten inches in height whose leaves looked eager and strong.
"See," she said as they all leaned over to examine it; "the blossom has two sets of leaves. The outer set is usually green or some color not so gay as to attract insects or birds that might destroy the flower when it is in bud. These outer leaves are called, all together, the calyx, and each one of them is called a sepal."
"The green thing on the back of a rose is the calyx and each of its leaflets is called a sepal," said Ethel Brown by way of fixing the definition firmly in her mind.
"The pretty part of the flower is the corolla which means 'little crown,' and each of its parts is called a petal."
"How did you learn all that?" demanded Ethel Brown admiringly.
"Your grandmother told me the other day."