361 



has usurped the place where, ordinarily, a carpel ought to be ; and 

 instead of illustrating or explaining the laws of Nature, its tendency 

 is directly the opposite, by showing how Nature can deviate from her 

 laws, or, at least, from her regular economy. 



But the great proof of an apple, or any other fruit, being nothing 

 more than a leaf rolled up and thickened, is to be found in the double 

 cherry. " In this plant," says the writer, " the centre of the flower is 

 occupied by a small green leaf stationed in the place of the carpel, 

 and consisting of two sides folded together along with a midrib, which 

 is longer than the leaf itself, and slightly dilated at the summit." It 

 is, again, said, " That the carpel of a cherry is a leaf admits then of 

 no further doubt, and consequently a cherry fruit is nothing whatever 

 but the mature state of the carpel." — P. 61. 



That the ripe cherry is the mature state of the carpel, I admit ; but 

 it must be a carpel in earnest, a real carpel, such as Nature, in her 

 laws, destined to produce the cherry, and which nothing else could 

 produce. But what is in its stead in the double-flowering cherry ? 

 ** A small green leaf stationed in its place^'' a starveling, an abortion, 

 that is neither leaf nor carpel, and could never produce a cherry, nor 

 anything else, till the end of time. And this is the simple and posi- 

 tive language of Nature's laws ! Why, the whole argument is per- 

 fectly valueless ; it is founded on an aberration of Nature's laws, on 

 an unnatural, useless leaflet, instead of a real seed-vessel, and which 

 can go to prove nothing beyond its own degenerate condition. 



But admitting that the genuine carpel is only a modified leaf, how 

 is the formation of the cherry to be explained ? This is done by 

 comparing the spurious leaf, that should be a carpel, with a real one ; 

 and then we are told that " it is obvious that the two reflected sides 

 of the leaf answer to the ovary, the midrib to the style, and the dilated 

 summit of the midrib to the stigma." — P. 61. That the small green 

 leaf bears some resemblance to what it naturally should be, there is 

 no doubt, but it is altogether spurious ; it is neither ovary, style, nor 

 stigma ; it is a morbid caricature of these parts, and, so far as I am 

 capable of seeing, can serve to sustain no theory but such as may be 

 founded on fancy or conjecture. I will say the same of the statement 

 that " the stone of a cherry is the hardened lining of the fruit; it is 

 also the upper stratum of the leaf, which consists of little bladders 

 placed in a difierent direction from those of the central and lower 

 strata. The pulpy portion of the cherry will then arise from these 

 latter, distended with fluid and altered in colour." — P. 61. 



The writer concludes this part of his subject in the following 

 Vol. IV. 3 a 



