THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 7 



ness who are careful to insist that this and the four-o'clock 

 "seed" are really fruits. Of course they are, but there is no 

 use bothering the beginner with the information. He has 

 enough to do in keeping his ideas of essential structure 

 properly classified. For the same reason, it does not seem de- 

 sirable to introduce the polycotyledonous seed of the pine. 

 This is frequently recommended in the books, but it only 

 serves to confuse the pupil. In college study where the stu- 

 dents are older it may well be introduced. The pines are a 

 small part of a small division of the plant world known as 

 Gymnosperms. They are not true flowering plants as the 

 world regards flowering plants and the general study of seeds 

 no more calls for their study than the study of leaves calls for 

 a study of fern-leaves and the study of flowers calls for a 

 study of the sporophylls of Selagindla. If one must have 

 pine seeds however, several kinds may be obtained of Thor- 

 burn. The largest — and hardest — are those of Piniis pinea. 

 In the large cities one may often obtain the seeds of Finns 

 inonophylla at the fruit stores. 



To the writer it seems a waste of time to bother the pupil 

 with anything about the raphe and chalaza until he has a 

 natural understanding of these parts. The same cannot be 

 said of the micropyle, hilum and possibly the seed-stalk or 

 funiculus. Some seeds have a second seed coat, the tegmen, 

 but no attention need be called to the fact, unless the pupil 

 happens to discover it. If one wants to see how important 

 the tegmen is considered, he may spend a little time trying to 

 find a mention of it in the indices and glossaries of scientific 

 texts. There is a good reason for calling the stem-like part of 

 the embryo the caulicle (little stem) instead of the hypocotyl, 

 and equally good reason for naming the food-store outside 

 the embryo the endosperm instead of the albumen. If pupils 

 are required to color similar parts of each drawing alike — say, 

 white for the canlicle, green for the plumule, blue for the 



