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CHAPTER XIX. 



OF THE FLOWER AND FRUIT, 



Having examined the general structure 

 and external form of plants, we now come to 

 more important and even essential, though 

 more transitory organs — the flower and fruit* 

 or parts of fructification. By these each 

 species is perpetually renewed without limits, 

 so far at least as the observation of mankind 

 has reached ; while, as we have already men- 

 tioned, all other modes of propagation are 

 but the extension of an individual, and sooner 

 or later terminate in its total extinction. 



Nothing can be more happy than the Lin- 

 nsean definition of these organs ; Phil. Bot.52. 

 " The fructification is a temporary part of 

 vegetables, destined for the reproduction of 

 the species, terminating the old indivdiual 

 and beginning the new/' 



