Note 217 — BOOK II. DEVIATIONS FROM THE ORDINARY FORM OF ORGANS.

The word symmetry has been used in very different senses by different botanists, sometimes as synonymous with "regularity," at other times to express the assumed typical form of a flower. Payer understands it to be that arrangement of parts which permits of the whole flower being divided vertically into two symmetrical halves (bi-lateral symmetry). Others, again, have applied the term symmetry to the number of the parts of the flower, reserving the terms "regularity" or "irregularity" for the form. It is here used in a general sense to express the plan of the flower, and thus includes the arrangement, form, and number of its component elements.