@ARTICLE{10.21494/ISTE.OP.2026.1425, 

TITLE={The Enigma of the Calyx in Bouvard and Pécuchet}, 
  
AUTHOR={Eric Tannier
, Simon Castellan
, Marine Fauché
, Sophie Nadot
, Agnès Schermann-Le-gionnet, }, 
	
JOURNAL={Art and Science}, 
	
VOLUME={10}, 

NUMBER={Issue 1}, 
	
YEAR={2026}, 

URL={https://www.openscience.fr/The-Enigma-of-the-Calyx-in-Bouvard-and-Pecuchet}, 
	
DOI={10.21494/ISTE.OP.2026.1425}, 
	
ISSN={2515-8767}, 
	
ABSTRACT={A few days before his death on May 8, 1880, Gustave Flaubert was working on the episode about botany, one of the last in his novel Bouvard and Pécuchet. To this end, inspired by a sentence by Rousseau about the calyx of flowers, which “is missing in most liliaceae,” he wrote a note in the form of a botanical enigma: to find a common plant, growing in Normandy in April, that would belong to a family that deviated from a general rule among plants (“Every plant has leaves, a calyx, and a corolla”), but which itself would deviate from this exception within its family (an exception to the exception). Without much familiarity with botany, Flaubert claimed to predict the existence of such a plant, while the enigma aroused caution among his more knowledgeable friends. An investigation by Maupassant allowed him to examine possible solutions, first among the Ranunculaceae and then the Rubiaceae, where the sherardia seemed to meet his expectations. This episode still leaves several questions unanswered, which we will attempt to shed light on, requiring a botanical and historical perspective on this enigma: why did Rousseau write “most”? Why did Flaubert reject Maupassant’s first solution? Why did he accept the second? Was the sherardia in 1880, and is it today, a good solution to his enigma? What natural or epistemological mechanisms produce exceptions to exceptions? How can this imaginary plant become the battleground for different conceptions of nature and knowledge, from the 19th to the 21st century?}}