S6i OS THE STRUCTURE OF SEEDS. 



only an albumen. Can this be true ? and if so, what is th* 

 value of such a distinction in a natural classification ? The 

 liliacecr, palmte, and now the orchidece, are acknowledged 

 to be acotyledonous, having only an albumen ; while the 

 grasses, so nearly allied to them, have one cotyledon, for 

 I presume their scale must be admitted as such. Gaertner's 

 phrase of embryo monocotyledoneus applied to these last- 

 mentioned families may occasion a mistake, which would be 

 avoided by the term embryo simplex, or indivisns, express- 

 ing his idea of the simple figure appropriate to this part in 

 such plants, but which does not prevent its upper extremity 

 being strictly analogous to the plumula of the dicotyledones. 

 - It seems to me therefore, that this learned writer is mistaken 



in saying the monocotyledonous plants never have any phi. 

 mula. They have not indeed that feather-like configuration 

 in the ascending point of their embryo, which gave rise to 

 the name, but the organ so called is, and must be, present. 

 To dispute about the terra is as little to the purpose as to 

 contend, that the orchidece have no pollen, because it is not 

 of a powdery appearance. 



ferns. From Mr. Lindsay's account of the germination of ferns 



in our 2d volume, this family must be deemed monocoty- 

 ledonous. Their germination seems at first analogous to 

 that of mosses, as given by Hedwig in his Theoria, but the 

 numerous and branched cotyledons of the latter overset all 

 analogy, and indeed all classification of plants by the num- 

 ber of the parts in question. Nothing could be more unna- 

 tural than to separate mosses for this reason from the other 

 cryptogajnic vegetables, and therefore Jussieu can scarcely 

 believe these parts to be cotyledons ; yet it is not possible 

 to call them any thing else, and to suppose them a peculiar, 

 and hitherto unheard of organ, would but increase the dif- 

 ficulty. Gaertner in the Introduction to his great work, 



Fuci. V- 157, tells us he has seen many cotyledons in several fuel 



also, and that he suspects others of the more imperfect 

 plants, hitherto referred to the monocotyledones, may be si- 

 milarly circumstanced. It seems that too much, by far, has 

 been taken for granted in this department, though the parts 

 under consideration form the great hinge upon which all na- 

 tural sys ems turn. It is only by analogy, that the great 



family, 



