"N8 IN 



1 



observation* mode on young drapon-treo*, tlio growth of which 



T 

 does a f t liis fact awaken ! 



* xwand yooTH havo 



m.ll'-d 



Iftto on thos. :!. will con' : that, 



I'.rr th 

 i of 111:111. lily ! 



TllC .~tll.li! ' 







ill ulluT \\ 



as a c<>' their clii---iticiiti<i!i :; - t. Not 



loss inoorroct aro Homo of onr common i<l .;ng tin; 



Hiuu'larities n.nd dissimilarities, or tho alliances, of the \, 

 which vcLTi'tnl'lr; ;irc composed. for oxamplo, do wo not com- 

 monly Bpcak of onions ami ]>otatoo8 as r i 



roots, nor aro they similar, far less identical, in character. Tho 

 onion is a hull), or underground bud, and tlic pot;>i 

 or knot '[I'M! ui!'!cr;rnmn<l, from which lln- 



roots and stems of tho potato plant respectively spring. Why 

 are (hey not roots ? the learner may ask. Tho reason why will 

 appear by-and-by: to explain those reasons is an object, and 

 ono of tho main objects, of botany. Wo merely cito tho ex- 

 amplo now for tho purpose of making known in a striking 

 manner the incorrectness of many notions we are in the habit 

 of pntortaining. 



Again, do wo not in ordinary language term tho strawberry 

 and the fig fruits '( Yet neither is a fruit. 



" Not a fruit ! " tho learner exclaims, " do wo not eat them ? " 

 Well, surely, onr reader would not limit the term fruit to some- 

 thing which prows on a-vegetable, and which is good to cat. We 

 think he will admit that the bunches of apples, as they are 

 called, which grow on potato stems, are tho fruits of the potato 

 plant ; yet potato apples aro not good to cat. Ho will admit 

 that the bunches which grow on ash-trees are tho fruit* of those 

 trees, yet they are not good to eat. Finally, not to multiply 

 examples unnecessarily, he will admit that acorns are the fruits 

 of the oak-tree ; and although our ancestors, the ancient Britons, 

 aro known to have eaten them, yet all wo can say upon that 

 point is, that ono pities tho bod taste or the hard fortune, as the 

 case may bo, of our forefathers. 



If strawberries, then, and figs a,ro not fruits, what are they ? 

 Why, the fig is to all intents and purposes a compound flower, 

 as much as the dandelion is a compound flower ; and a straw- 

 berry is something like a lig turned inside out ; but tho learner 

 shall judge for himself. 



The strawberry plant bears, as wo all know, a very evident, 

 a very pretty flower, the petals or flower-leaves of which drop- 

 ping off, we ultimately get something which is good to eat, and 

 which wo term tho strawberry fruit. 



Why, then, is it not a fruit ? We will see. If it be a fruit, 

 It should contain seeds ; but on cutting it open wo cannot find 

 any. Here, then, the learner would bo puzzled if botany did 

 not come to bis aid. General principles havo to bo appealed to, 

 and the appeal will not bo made in vain. 



Whilst conjecturing within ourselves tho botanical nature of 

 tho strawberry, and trying to find out 

 the freak which Nature has been play- 

 ing in order to lead us astray, we all 

 at once bethink ourselves of tho little 

 hard protuberances on the outside of 

 the strawberry. What aro they ? of 

 what do they consist ? what is their 

 function ? 



A learner, if he had not been ren- 

 dered cautious by previous experience, 

 might all at once arrive at the con- 

 clusion that the strawberry is a fruit 

 turned inside out, having consequently 

 its needs externally ; and amazingly 

 Hko seeds do these little protuberances 

 appear. They are not seeds, never- 

 theless : they nro fruit*, the real strawberry fruits ; but so little 

 adapted for eating are they that the lover of strawberries wishes 

 away. Then what is the edible portion of the 

 Try : Botany answers this question satisfactorily, and 

 :ill clear. It is the juicy torus of the plant. The reader 



1. TORUS OF THE MARIGOLD. 



TICK OF A riO. 



t tie knowledge from thin remark beyond the knowledge 

 of MI, at present, unmeaning name ; and M we do not intend 

 that any naroott in thi* series of paper* on the Science of flntsaij 

 shall be unmeaning, we will at onoe proceed to explain what a 



toriM in. 



. then, in tho Latin word for bed, and <g"<flfff that DOT- 



lower iUelf reposes or 



grown. Tiiko, for example, the marigold, and atrip off all it* 



irtrf; tbi-n> will then remain underneath a flat, flashy 



expansion, called tho torn*. In the cane of the marigold the 



i ho reader may eamly conceive that it might 



.;i.i <>r approaching to rotundity. In the marigold it 



ia leathery and naiwooiw, but the reader 



will as easily conceive that it might have 



been fleshy and di-li'-ioiis, Jii indood WO 



find it to bo in tho strawberry. Analysed 

 thii-, w- find a similarity between tho 

 strawberry and the marigold that tho 

 non-l.otanir,.' , }, aV i. httlo 



suspected. Nor is the .similarity f> 



ittural, and loses nothing by tho 

 fullest investigation which tho learner 

 can devote to it. Tims, we dare say, tho 

 reader has watched tho progress of a 

 marigold to maturity ; has noticed the 

 - blown away, ono by one, and 

 nothing but tho stem, tho torus, and the 

 little seed-like things embedded upon the 

 torus remain. These little things, like 

 the hard excrescences on the strawberry, 

 look so much like seeds, that they might 



be taken for such. However, we are never to assume because 

 a thing is small ftrat it is imperfect. If these so-called 

 seeds be dissected and examined, they will be found to be real 

 fruits, as much as the apple or the pear, and BO contain seeds 

 internally. 



And now for our other example, tho fig. What is the fig ? 

 Not a fruit certainly, although tho freak of Nature here, if w 

 may without disrespect use such a term, is different from taoae 

 which have come under our notice hitherto. Let us cut open a 

 fig ; what then do we see ? Why, little things very similar in 

 appearance to flowers, at the base of each of which there is a 

 hard nut-liko thing which cracks between tho teeth. Flowers 

 indeed they are, and tho nut-like things ore fruits, the edible 

 portion of the fig being a torus ; so that if we assume the 

 strawberry to havo had a flat torus instead of a knob-like one, 

 and that the flat torus had been turned outside in, in such a 

 manner as to form a bottle with a very narrow mouth, we should 

 have had a result very much resembling a fig in structure and 

 general appearance. 



Even the delicious pine-apple con hardly be termed a fruit 

 Each pine-apple certainly contains many fruits, one correspond- 

 ing with each lozenge-like marking; but the main bulk of the 

 pine-apple, that which we find so delicious to eat, is only an 

 assemblage of juicy frncts, as botanists call them, the exact 

 counterpart of those little scales which, when tightly compressed 

 together, form the cup of the acorn. 



We are sure, then, that sufficient has been stated to make ap- 

 parent to the reader the necessity of abandoning many common 

 notions he may have previously entertained in relation to th* 

 similarities and dissimilarities of vegetables, and the parts of 

 which they are mode up. 



LESSONS IN GERMAN. I. 



THE object of the author of these Lessons in German is to 

 unite theory and practice ; to introduce, one by one, the easier 

 forms and usages of the language ; and to direct the student* H 

 attention to tho more obvious differences between the German-*nd 

 English languages. The learner will bo supplied, throughout the 

 various exercises, with the materials necessary for their due per- 

 formance. Every section is headed with the statement and 

 illustration of all new principles involved, with an explanation 

 of words and phrases, and a vocabulary alphabetically arranged. 

 To render these lessons complete, there will be given at the 

 end a series of reading lesson*, eaoh accompanied by a full 

 vocabulary. The whole is specially intended for those 



