HAVE PLANTS A PEDIGREE? 143 



the coroline with the calycine leaves, and the fruit between this line and 

 the rind represents the calycine leaves, grown thick and succulent. 



Now, the flower of this Kittanning tree appears as a mere rudiment. 

 How, if this theory is true, should the fruit appear ? The pistillate 

 whorl is wanting, and in theory the apple should have no core. It has 

 none, but in its place a large cavity, as shown in Fig. 11. The stamens 

 are rudimental, and the petals are represented by five little bud-scales. 

 Theoretically, then, we should find but little fruit between the core- 

 cavity and the fibrous line. There is but little, as the cut will show\ 

 The calyx is better developed, and we should find more fruit between 

 the fibrous line and the rind — as we do. The flower starts with all the 

 essential organs of a flower, and, before the inner whorls are arrested, 

 enough vitality is given to the outer whorl to start it on the way 

 toward an apple. And with the lack of development in the inner 

 whorls the outer one develops cork cells, and the rind takes on the 

 character of bark ! 



This is Nature teaching by what is abnormal. Let us scrutinize 

 her where she seems most regular and orderly. 



The acorn, like the apple, is seen by everybody and know^n by 

 scarcely anybody. We will take a full-grown acorn in its cup and cut 

 it through about midway from top to base. We shall find five little 

 roundish bodies pressed up close against the shell. What are they ? 

 and how came they here ? We consult the flower, and find (in the 

 fertile one) a style with a three-lobed stigma. The pistil, then, repre- 

 sents three transformed and infolded leaves. When the flower is a 

 little more advanced, we will cut through the lower part of the pistil 

 and examine a section. This part becomes the ovary, and we find in 

 our section three partition-walls radiating from the circumference to 

 the centre and dividing the ovary into three compartments. In this 

 tripartite structure we find our three leaves, the infolded blades co- 

 hering along parts of their surface and forming the partition-walls. 

 On each of these partitions we see two ovules. The ovules represent 

 leaves budding out on the margin of the pistil-leaf, and thus every 

 ovary, in theory, should have at the very least as many ovules as there 

 are leaves composing it. In the flower we have now the plan of the 

 acorn. The surface of the ovary will become a shell. The six ovules 

 will grow and ripen into six seeds. Cutting through the shell of the 

 fuU-grow^n acorn we shall find it to contain three chambers, and each 

 chamber two naked acorns. We find nothing of the sort ! Where 

 was the slip ? Early in the acorn's life one of the six ovules gets the 

 start of its neighbors and takes to itself all the nutriment. It grows 

 too large for its chamber, and breaks the partition-walls. It grows to 

 the measure of all the chambers, fills them, and pushes its shriveled 

 brethren up against the shell-wall where you see them, five little starved- 

 out things which once were possible oaks ! Strange, is it not ? And 

 how passing strange if the oak were made so by " special creation ! " 



