2S4 OF THE MILUM, PELLICULA, 



which alone life and nourishment are conveyed for the 

 perfecting its internal parts. Consequently all those 

 parts must be intimately connected with the inner 

 surface of this scar, and they are all found to meet 

 there, and to divide or divaricate from that point, 

 more or less immediately. In describing the form or 

 various external portions of any seed, the Hilum is al- 

 ways to be considered as the base. When the seed is 

 quite ripe, the communication through this channel is 

 interrupted ; it separates from the parent plant with> 

 out injury, a Scar being formed on each. Yet the 

 Hilum is so far capable of resuming its former nature, 

 that the juices of the earth are imbibed through it 

 previous to germination. 



There are various accessory parts, or appendages, 

 to seeds, which come under the following denomina- 

 tions. 



Fellicula, the Pellicle, called by Gasrtner Epider- 

 mis^ closely adheres to the outside of some seeds, so 

 as to conceal the proper colour and surface of their 

 skin, and is either membranous, and often downy, 

 as in Convolvulus^ or mucilaginous, not perceptible till 

 the seed is moistened, as in Salvia verbenaca^ Engl. 

 Bot. t. 154. Perhaps the covering of the seed in 

 Chenopodiumy called by Gaertner Utriculus^ is merely 

 a Pellicula. 



Ardlus, the Tunic, is either a complete or partial 

 covering of a seed, fixed to its base only, and more or 

 less loosely or closely enveloping its other parts. Of 

 this nature is the pulpy orai ge-coloured cout in Eu- 

 onymus, t. 362, the beautiful scarlet cup in Afzelia, 



