96 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



serving all the terseness and brevity of the original in this very 

 literal rendering, the statement of the fact may seem a trifle ex- 

 aggerated. The first roots issuing from a grain of wheat or barley 

 appear not quite from the base, but from near it, and the first leaf 

 appears from a point well toward the summit of the grain. The 

 two do not, as in dicotyledonous plants, come forth from the same 

 point. But thus early in the history of botany, even by this first 

 forefather, was given in these words, the first hint of a fundamental 

 distinction between flowering plants as dicotyledonous and mono- 

 cotyledonous. By w^ay of further elucidation he continues: 

 "Wheat, barley, rye, and all the grains sprout from both ends; 

 that is to say, the basal and thicker end of the grain puts forth 

 the root, the upper and narrower end the green herbage. The 

 two, however, are connected and continuous as one. But neither 

 the bean nor any other seeds of leguminous plants have this way 

 of sprouting. These put forth root and stem from the same point, 

 namely, that at which the seed was linked to pod, as if under that 

 point [the hilum of later terminology] lay the special seat of the 

 growing principle. In the case of seeds of this kind the root at 

 first appearing begins to show a downward tendency, the stem an 

 upward. The seeds of the frumentaceous and the leguminous 

 kinds are alike in this one particular of sprouting from the point 

 of insertion; but of certain trees, the almond, walnut, the oaks 

 and their allies, the seeds sprout from the opposite end." I have 

 omitted here one of the most important clauses; that in which 

 he indicates his having observed in the bean and lupine allies the 

 two cotyledons, joined to the hypocotyle.^ Later in the same 

 chapter he states without simile or comparison the same char- 

 acteristic. "The seeds of all the latter," that is, of the particular 

 trees he has mentioned, and of the leguminous herbs, "are in a 

 manner two-parted." And again: "Wheat and barley make their 

 first appearance with but a single leaf, peas and beans with several" ; 

 from which it is manifest that he counts the cotyledons as leaves, 

 along with the one or two that appear in the plumule. Still other 

 facts and phenomena observed and recorded by him about ger- 

 minating seeds, and young seedlings, must enkindle toward Theo- 

 phrastus the wondering admiration of the most accomplished 

 modem botanist. He says that he finds it uniformly true, what- 

 ever the kind or the structure of the seed, that the "root" is first 

 to appear, after that the leaf or leaves; also that the cereals, while 



' In Latin the clause runs thus: "Id quod in quibusdam partis pudendae 

 refert formam, ceu in faba et cicere, sed maxime in lupino. " 



