200 OF PLANTS. 



But (to pursue this great work in its progress,) the im- 

 pregnation, to which all this machinery relates, being com- 

 pleted, the other parts of the flower fade and drop off, whilst 

 the gravid seed-vessel, on the contrary, proceeds to increase 

 its bulk, always to a great, and in some species, (in the 

 goard, for example, and melon,) to a surprising compara- 

 tive size ; assuming in different plants an incalculable va- 

 riety of forms, but all evidently conducing to the security 

 of the seed. By virtue of this process, so necessary, but 

 so diversified, we have the seed, at length, in stone-fruits 

 and nuts, incased in a strong shell, the shell itself enclosed 

 in a pulp or husk, by which the seed within is, or hath 

 been, fed; or, more generally (as in grapes, oranges, and 

 the numerous kinds of berries) plunged over head in a 

 glutinous syrup, contained within a skin or bladder; at 

 other times (as in apples and pears) embedded in the heart 

 of a firm, fleshy substance ; or, (as in strawberries) prick- 

 ed into the surface of a soft pulp. 



These and many other varieties exist in what we call 

 fruits.* In pulse, and grain, and grasses ; in trees, and 

 shrubs, and flowers; the variety of the seed-vessels is in- 

 kind of funnel, or entrance like that of some kinds of mouse-traps, 

 through which the insects may easily enter but not return: several 

 creep in, and, uneasy at their confinement, are constantly moving to 

 and fro, and so deposit the pollen upon the stigma ; but when the work 

 intrusted to them is completed, and impregnation has taken place, the 

 hair which prevented their escape shrinks, and adheres closely to the 

 sides of the llower, and these little go-betweens of Flora at length 

 leave their prison. A writer,, however, in the Annual Medical Re- 

 view (ii. 400.) doubts the accuracy of this f\ict, on the ground that he 

 could never find T. pennicornis, though .^. clematitis has produced 

 fruit two years at Bronipton." Introduction to Entomology, by 

 Kirhy anil Spence, vol. i. p. 293. 



That the tipula penniconiis does enter the flowers of arisfolochia 

 clematitis, as recorded by Professor Willdenow, I can confidently af- 

 firm, from having observed them in great plenty in the inflated base 

 of the corolla every year, for these last fifteen years, in the Oxford 

 Botanic Garden, where the plant generally forms fruit. The first time 

 I found this insect in the flowers of the above species of arisfolochia^ 

 was on the 12th of July, 1812, at Godstow, near Oxford, where the 

 plant was then growing in a wild state near the ruins of the nunnery. 



For the above observations, the Editor is indebted to an excellent 

 botanist, Mr. W. Baxter. Paxton. 



* From the conformation of fruits alone, one might be led, even 

 without experience, to suppose, that part of this pravision was des- 

 tined for the utilities of animals. As limited to the plant, the provision 

 itself seems to go beyond its object. The flesh of an ap])le, the pulp 

 of an orange, the meat of a plumb, " the fatness of the olive," appear 

 to be more than sufficient iox the uourishing of the seed or kerneL 



