ON FRUITS AND SEEDS. 157 



corolla ; thirdly,' a whorl of organs, more or less like pins, which are 

 called stamens ; and in the heads, or anthers, of which the pollen is 

 produced. These anthers are in reality, as Goethe showed, modified 

 leaves ; in the so-called double flowers, as, for instance, in our garden 

 roses, they are developed into colored leaves like those of the corolla, 

 and monstrous flowers are not unfrequently met with in which the 

 stamens are green leaves, more or less resembling the ordinary leaves 

 of the plant. Lastly, in the center of the flower is the pistil, which 

 also is theoretically to be considered as constituted of one or more 

 leaves, each of which is folded on itself and called a carpel. Some- 

 times there is only one carpel. Generally the carpels have so com- 

 pletely lost the appearance of leaves that this explanation of their true 

 nature requires a considerable amount of faith. The base of the pis- 

 til is the ovary, composed, as I have just mentioned, of one or more 

 carpels, in which the seeds are developed. I need hardly say that many 

 so-called seeds are really fruits ; that is to say, they are seeds with 

 more or less complex envelopes. 



We all know that seeds and fruits differ greatly in different spe- 

 cies. Some are large, some small ; some are sweet, some bitter ; some 

 are brightly colored ; some are good to eat, some poisonous, some 

 spherical, some winged, some covered with bristles, some with hairs, 

 some are smooth, some very sticky. 



We may be sure that there are good reasons for these differences. 

 In the case of flowers much light has been thrown on their various in- 

 teresting peculiarities by the researches of Sprengel, Darwin, Mtiller, 

 and other naturalists. As regards seeds also, besides Gartner's great 

 work, Hildebrand, Krause, Steinbrinck, Kerner, Grant Allen, Wallace, 

 Darwin, and others, have published valuable researches, especially with 

 reference to the hairs and hooks with which so many seeds are pro- 

 vided, and the other means of dispersion they possess. Nobbe also 

 has contributed an important work on seeds, principally from an agri- 

 cultural point of view, but the subject as a whole offers a most promis- 

 ing field for investigation. It is rather with a view of suggesting this 

 branch of science to you, than of attempting to supply the want my- 

 self, that I now propose to call your attention to it. In doing so I 

 must, in the first place, express my acknowledgments to Mr. Baker, 

 Mr. Carruthers, Mr. Hemsley, and especially to Mr. Thiselton Dyer 

 and Sir Joseph Hooker, for their kind and most valuable assistance. 



It is said that one of our best botanists once observed to another 

 that he never could understand what was the use of the teeth on the 

 capsules of mosses. " Oh," replied his friend, " I see no difficulty in 

 that, because, if it were not for the teeth, how could we distinguish the 

 species ? " 



We may, however, no doubt, safely consider that the peculiarities 

 of seeds have reference to the plant itself, and not to the convenience 

 of botanists. 



