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AND PERICHÆTIUM.
251

present, even in different individuals of the same species.

"Unfortunately for the science,
On the awn there's no reliance."

So says, or rather sings, with more truth than sublimity, the ingenious author of the Flora Londinensis; fasc. 6, t. 8.

The spiral kind of awn is most frequently attached to the Corolla of grasses, which is precisely of the same husky nature as their calyx, and is, by some botanists, considered as such. Specimens of glumæ muticæ, bearded husks, are seen in Phalaris canariensis, Engl. Bot. t. 1310, and glumæ aristatæ, awned ones, in Lagurus ovatus, t. 1334, and Stipa pennata, t. 1356.

6. Perichætium. A scaly sheath, investing the fertile flower, and consequently the base of the fruit-stalk, in some Mosses. In the genus Hypnum it is of great consequence, not only by its presence, constituting a part of the generic character, but by its differences in shape, proportion, and struc-