Pl. corollas. [a. L. corolla, dim. of corōna crown, garland. Used as a botanical term by Linnæus.]
† 1. A little crown, coronet; a figure shaped like a coronet. Obs. rare.
1671. Phil. Trans., VI. 2251. Surrounded by a corolla or coronet made up of little dark points.
2. Bot. The whorl of leaves (petals) either separate or grown together, forming the inner envelope of the flower, and generally its most conspicuous part; usually ‘colored’ (i.e., not green), and of delicate texture. (Called by Grew the foliation. Cf. CALYX.)
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Corolla, among botanists, is the most conspicuous part of a flower.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., i. 22. This is called the corolla, and not the flower, as it is by the vulgar.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem., iii. (1814), 68. The corolla consists either of a single piece, when it is called monopetalous, or of many pieces, when it is called polypetalous.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., vi. 161. When a flower is fertilised by the wind it never has a gaily-coloured corolla.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. 153. It is … for the sake of the corolla, that we cultivate the flower.
3. attrib. and Comb.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., 229. On beauty’s changed corolla-shades.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 135. Corolla-tube urceolate or cylindric. Ibid., 178. Corolla-lobes with slender tips. Ibid., 261. Upper corolla-lip entire.
