Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/317

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE SEEDS.
287

and enlarged into a Seed-vessel, as in Pinus, the Fir.

In the most perfect examples of this kind of fruit the Seeds are closely sheltered by the scales as by a capsule, of which the Fir, Cypress, &c., are instances. In the Birch and Alder they have a kind of capsule besides, and in the Willow and Poplar a stalked bivalve capsule, still more separate from the scales. The Plane-tree, Platanus, the Liquidambar and the Comptonia, have globular catkins, in which bristles or tubercles supply the place of scales. See Gærtner, t. 90.

6. Semina. The Seeds are the sole "end and aim" of all the organs of fructification. Every other part is, in some manner, subservient to the forming, perfecting, or dispersing of these. A seed consists of several parts, some of which are more essential than others, and of these I shall speak first.

Embryo, the Embryo, or Germ, is the most essential of all, to which the rest are wholly subservient, and without which no