12 PAPILIONACEOUS FLOWERS. 



men ; indeed, this separation is always visible at the 

 base of the body of filaments, where one of them ap- 

 pears constantly separated from the rest. 



The next great characteristic of this tribe is in the 

 kind of fruit they produce, which we term, legume, dis- 

 tinguished from the pod or silique of the cruciform 

 plants by its consisting of but a single cell, or without 

 the partition, and having the seeds (peas or beans) 

 attached only to the upper edge or suture. The le- 

 gume, also, opens lengthwise and rolls backwards, 

 whereas in the silique, the valves separate and roll or 

 stand out from the bottom upwards. The seeds of 

 this tribe have commonly a very marked scar, black 

 spot, or line by which they adhered to the legume, 

 and known to the Botanist as the hylum, or umbilical 

 point of attachment. Near this scar there exists a 

 minute opening into the body of the seed, through 

 which vivifying moisture is imbibed at the period 

 of first growth or germination ; it continues to swell, 

 and, at length, bursts the imprisoning integument, and 

 now presents, between the divided halves of the pea, 

 the rudiments of the first true leaves, and the short 

 sheathed root. These two hemispheres, which never, 

 as in oiher plants, expand into proper seed leaves, are 

 still, as well as them, termed eotyledones, in allu- 

 sion to the important part they take in the nourish- 

 ment and early protection of the infant plant. In the 

 Pea they contain a sweetish farinaceous substance, 

 which is slowly imbibed by the growing embryon, af- 

 fording nutrition of the most necessary and suitable 

 kind to the infant vegetable, not yet prepared to ela- 

 borate the means of its own support. Thus we see, 

 independent of the existence of sentiment or of in- 

 stinct, in plants, as in animals, a certain dependance 

 on a female parent, which endures from early concep- 

 tion to a period which might be termed adolescence. 



