—Ben Jonson.
The Flower seems to have been created expressly to say to men:—"Listen! Those things which most attract your glance are but subordinate, and the principal escape you."
That the warning is true, all history attests. It is only, so to speak, from yesterday that the discovery of the sex of plants is to be dated; the tiny organs occupying the centre of the flower having always appeared so insignificant that they had passed, for some thousands of years, completely unnoticed. The eye of the spectator was caught by the calyx and the corolla; these envelopes, though of secondary importance so far as the reproduction of the vegetable is concerned, seemed to eyes dazzled by their glowing colours the true flower,—in fact, the entire flower. Science, which is the slow elaboration of thought matured by the study of objects of no human origin, has completely swept aside this premature judgment.
The Perianth.
We have already, and more than once, employed the word perianth[58] to designate the calyx or corolla, whether taken separately or together. In the former case, the perianth is simple; in the latter, it is double. A more appropriate word could not be made use of. It is derived from the Greek πεσὶ, around, and ἃνθος, flower; and literally signifies, "floral envelope." Simple or double, this envelope is the metamorphosis of several leaves, never of a solitary one, inserted upon planes so closely brought together that they seem confounded. Observe, in fact, how the leaves tend to efface their intervals on the blossom-bearing spray; they draw towards each other, they are apparently in eager haste to accomplish their destined transformation. What eloquence there is in this simple language of nature!
The Calyx.—The outermost whorl, or verticle, of the flower is called the calyx. And why? Out of a notion altogether incorrect. It is true that this foliaceous envelope may often assume the shape of a cup (in Latin, calix), and hence that the name has about it a semi-poetical air. But this only occurs when the calyx is composed of a single leaf, which has procured for it the special designations of monosepalous, gamopetalous, and monophyllous,—three different words expressing one and the same thing! The violet and the primrose are examples of a monophyllous, monosepalous, or gamopetalous calyx.
I see, dear reader, that you are puzzled by the word sepal. Certainly you would look for it in vain in any classical dictionary; it is neither Greek nor Latin. It was only invented, scarce a century ago, by a Swiss botanist, whose works have chiefly remained in manuscript,—by Necker, brother of the celebrated minister of Louis XVI., and uncle of the illustrious Madame de Staël. Let me explain the circumstance which determined, I suspect, the choice of this fanciful word,—a word belonging to no language but that of modern botanists.
The botanists of antiquity called the coloured leaflets of the corolla, petals. In this they were doubly right; for, first, they are, in reality, nothing but metamorphosed leaves; second, the word petal (in Greek, πέταλον) signified "a leaf" as early as the days of Homer, who, when speaking of the nightingale, says, like a keen observer of nature, that this bird, on the return of spring, sings—