Grew, an English botanist of the eighteenth century, seems to have been the first who made use of the word _calyx_. "I call a calyx," he says,[60] "the external portion of the flower, which enfolds the others, whether it be all in one piece, as in the violets, or divided, as in the roses."
If we wish to conform to the truth, as brought before us by nature, we must revolutionize our terminology. Instead of speaking of bipartite, tripartite, quadripartite, or of bilobed and trilobed calices,--terms all signifying that the monophyllous calyx is cloven more or less deeply from top to bottom, we must say that the calyx in such and such a species has its leaflets united at the base, or one third, fourth, or half of its height; the _polyphyllous_ or _polysepalous_ calyx will be that whose leaflets remain detached, as was the case in the monophyllous or monosepalous calyx. This language, recommended by the authority of Auguste Saint-Hilaire, would be more precise and exact: therefore, it will not be very quickly adopted. One would say that the human mind condemns itself to pass through the purgatory of what is false and complex, before resolving to adopt the simple and the true.
If we admit the theory according to which all the organs of the vegetable are the result of a metamorphosis of the leaf, we shall ask what place is to be given to the calyx in the series of these transformations?--Answer: The calyx is a foliaceous transformation, intermediary between the bracts and the corolla.
It is particularly in the study of the calyx that the attentive eye is struck by those proteiform movements in which nature makes sport of our absolute rules.
For example: in the _Berberis vulgaris_, the young calicinal leaflets have less resemblance to the bracts than to the petals of the corolla, and hence they have received the name of _petaloid sepals_. In other flowers this morphogenic wavering inclines towards the bracts rather than towards the corolla. We hesitate, therefore, whether we must give the name of _calyx_ or _bracts_ to the three under leaflets which are visible beneath the petaloid envelope of the _Anemone nemorosa_, or wood anemone. The calyx of the Celandine (_Ranunculus ficaria_), which also flowers in spring, is exactly like a whorl or involucre formed by the union of the bracts.