SEED. 131 



the beards on a feather. In Fig. 87, a represents the capillary, 



Fig. 87. 



or hair-like egret ; b the plumose, or feathery egret ; c and d 

 show the style remaining, and forming a train as in the virgin's 

 bower and geum; e a wing, as may be seen in the fir; and/ a 

 sessile egret. 



Gener-al Remarks upon Seeds. 



The number of seeds in different plants is variable ; some 

 have but one ; some, like the umbelliferous plants, have two ; 

 some have four, as in the rough leaved plants ; in the order 

 Gynospermia, of the class Didynamia, there are four lying na- 

 ked in each calyx. The number varies from these to thou- 

 sands. A stalk of indian corn is said to have produced, in 

 one season, two thousand seeds. A sunflower four thousand. 

 A capsule of the poppy has been found to contain eight thou- 

 sand seeds. It has been calculated that a single thistle seed 

 will produce, at the first crop, twenty-four thousand, and at the 

 second crop, at this rate, five hundred and seventy-six millions. 

 In the same species of plants the number of seeds is often found 

 to vary. The apple and many others might be given as ex- 

 amples. 



Seeds, according as they vary in size, have been divided 

 into four kinds ; large, from the size of a walnut to that of the 

 cocoa nut ; middle size, neither larger than a hazle nut, nor 

 smaller than a millet seed ; small, between the size of the seeds 

 of a poppy and a bell flower ; minute, like dust or powder, as 

 in the ferns and mosses. 



When a pericarp separates itself from the parent plant, or 

 when the valves of the fruit open, this is not the effect of vital - 

 activity, but a proof that the fruit has ceased to vegetate. The 

 fruit, like the leaves at the end of autumn, losing the vital prin- 

 ciple, is submitted to the laws which govern inorganized matter. 



The period in which the seeds arrive at maturity, marks the 

 period of the life of annual plants, and the suspension of vege- 

 tation in woody and perennial plants. Nature, in favouring by 

 various means, the dispersion of these seeds, presents pheno- 



N umber of seeds variable Size variable Separation of the pericarp from 

 the plant. 



