Principia botanica: or, a concise and easy introduction to the sexual botany of Linnaeus ... / [Anon.] Arranged in columns under each class and order; and digested alphabetically under several generie distinctions. By which means most plants may be thus far ascertained. Together with three indexes ... Also a table of several vegetable drugs not in the indexes.

Robert Darwin

Date:: 1787

Credit: Principia botanica: or, a concise and easy introduction to the sexual botany of Linnaeus ... / [Anon.] Arranged in columns under each class and order; and digested alphabetically under several generie distinctions. By which means most plants may be thus far ascertained. Together with three indexes ... Also a table of several vegetable drugs not in the indexes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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common dilated receptacle * and within a common peri- anthium; and in those flowers where each floret hath its proper calyx, that is also a peri anthium. 2d. Compound aggregate, consisting also of se- veral leffer flowers or florets, placed sitting (or without partial peduncles] on a common dilated receptacle, and within a common perianthium; and where each floret hath its proper calyx, it is also a perianthium. Compound flowers also admit of a further description, (viz.) each floret consists of a single petal, with generally five divi- sions, and having five stamina distinct at the base, but united at the top by the antherce into a cylinder, through which pafseth the style of the pistillum, longer than the stamina, and crowned by a stigma with two divisions, that are rolled backwards, and having a single seed placed upon the receptacle under each floret. This is the general charafter of a compound flower, to which there are a few exceptions ; it also differs when the flower is radiate ;f but the elsential character of a regular floret consists in the antherce being united so as to form a cylinder, and having a single seed placed upon the receptacle under each floret. 3d. Umbellate aggregate, when the flower consists of many florets placed on fastigiate peduncles proceeding from the same stem or receptacle, and though of different lengths, rise to such an height, as to form a regular head or umbel, whether flat, convex, or concave; and both the common and partial calyx, Linnaeus * The membraneous sort of chaffy substance, or lamina:, frequently grow- ing on the receptacle, and intended as a partition between the florets, is called paka (chaff). f A flower is said to be radiate, when the florets in the radius, or circum* ference differ from those in the disk; in which case they are generally larger,- and are called 5cw/-florets, from their difference in form, and in distinction from those of the disk, which are called proper florets : and they also differ as to sex, which gives rise to several of the orders in the clafs syngencsiat which contains the compound flowersand where they are further explained.

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