Formerly also calix. Pl. calyces, rarely calyxes. [L. calyx, a. Gr. κάλυξ outer covering of a fruit, flower or bud; shell, husk, pod, pericarp (from root of καλύπτειν to cover). In med.L. and in the Romanic langs., this word has run together in form with the much commoner Latin word calix ‘cup, goblet, drinking vessel’; and the two are to a great extent treated as one by modern scientific writers, so that the calyx of a flower is commonly (though quite erroneously) explained as the ‘flower-cup,’ and the form calyx and its derivatives are applied to many cup-like organs, which have nothing to do with the calyx of a flower, but are really meant to be compared to a calix or cup. See sense 2 and cf. CALIX.]
1. Bot. The whorl of leaves (sepals), either separate or grown together, and usually green, forming the outer envelope in which the flower is enclosed while yet in the bud. Called by Grew, 1682, Empalement.
[1671. Malpighi, Anat. Plant., Calyx … floris basis est.
1686. Ray, Hist. Plant., I. A 2. Calyx, folliculus sive, involucrum floris … the cup enclosing or containing the flower.]
1693. [see CALYCULATE].
1704. in J. Harris, Lex. Techn.
1718. R. Bradley, New Improv. Planting, II. (ed. 2), 83. The other [race] whose petals cannot contain themselves within the Bounds of the Chalyx, are call’d round podded Flowers.
1737–59. Miller, Gard. Dict., Explan. Terms, The empalement, Calix, is generally understood to mean, those less tender leaves, which cover the other parts of the flower.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. 195, note. The effect of light … occasions the actions of the vegetable muscles … which open their calyxes and chorols.
1802. Mar. Edgeworth, Moral T. (1816), I. xvii. 144. The brown calyces of the geranium flowers.
1866. Ruskin, Eth. Dust, 212. The calyx is nothing but the swaddling clothes of the flower; the child-blossom is bound up in it, hand and foot.
b. Applied to similar parts of other organisms.
1852. Richardson, Geol., viii. 224. In the sea-lily it [the stomach] reposes in the calyx surrounded by the arms.
1872. H. A. Nicholson, Palæont., 119. At the summit of the stem is placed the body, which is termed the ‘calyx.’
2. Phys. and Biol. Variant spelling of CALIX.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 798. The Calyces (Infundibula) are small membraneous ducts which embrace … the circumference of the mammillæ.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat., I. 357/1. The part of the ovary in which the ovum is lodged is termed the calyx.
3. Comb., as calyx-base, -leaf, -limb, -lobe, -segment, -tooth, -tube; calyx-like adj.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 315. Beta … Fruit adnate to the disk and *calyx-base.
1869. Oliver, Elem. Bot., I. i. 7. *Calyx-leaves or Sepals.
1849–52. Todd, Cycl. Anat., IV. 1137/2. A … *calyx-like arrangement.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 176. *Calyx-limb deciduous.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., vii. (1872), 173. The uppermost flower generally has two *calyx-lobes.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 66. Stamens inserted on the *calyx-mouth. Ibid., 115. Bracts longer than the ovate *calyx-segments. Ibid., 265. *Calyx-teeth short. Ibid., 183. *Calyx-tube and corolla white.
