CRUCIFORM FLOWERS. 9 



The second contains those whose seed-vessel is a 

 silicle, or small and short pod, as in the Cress, Candy- 

 tuft, and Shepherd's purse, where it is almost as wide 

 as long. The most part of these silicles or short pods 

 present valves which are not flat, but hollow, and form- 

 ed like the keel of a boat ; in these the partition or dis- 

 sepiment is very narrow, and in place of being parallel 

 with the valves, cuts across them or is transverse. 

 This character is not, however, uniform, or without 

 exception, for in Lunaria or Honesty the fruit is an 

 elliptic, broad, flat pod, with the dissepiment as wide as 

 the valves, and in Myagrum sativum and other genera, 

 the valves, instead of being keeled, are only convex, 

 and have, consequently, the partitions nearly equal, or 

 apparently so, with the valves.* In fine, we meet in 

 nature with none of those broad, abrupt distinctions, 

 which system-makers are so fond of seizing. On the 

 contrary, we every where perceive an interlinking of 

 objects in various directions, not pursuing that regular 

 chain of finite connexion, which some have thought to 

 exist in nature, like a succession of units, each in sim- 

 ple connexion with that which follows or precedes it, 

 but each object is connected variously, so that a view 

 of the relations existing among them would nearer re- 

 semble a geographical map, or a tree with its branch- 

 es, than a chain of simple links. 



* For figures of these, and the flowers of the other natural fami- 

 lies described, see the close of the volume. 



