CHAPTER XIII. 



THE SEED AND HUSK. 



1. NOT the least sorrowful, nor least absurd of the 

 confusions brought on us by unscholarly botanists, blun- 

 dering into foreign languages, when they do not know 

 how to use their own, is that which has followed on their 

 practice of calling the seed-vessels of flowers ' egg- ves- 

 sels,' * in Latin ; thus involving total loss of the power 

 of the good old English word 4 husk,' and the good old 

 French one, ' cosse. ' For all the treasuries of plants 

 (see Chapter IV., 17) may be best conceived, and 

 described, generally, as consisting of ' seed ' and ' husk, ' 

 for the most part two or more seed 3, in a husk com- 

 posed of two or more parts, as pease in their shell, pips 

 in an orange, or kernels in a walnut ; but whatever 

 their number, or the method of their enclosure, let the 

 student keep clear in his mind, for the base of all study 

 L of fructification, the broad distinction between the seed, 

 as one thing, and the husk as another : the seed, essen- 

 tial to the continuance of the plant's race ; and the husk, 



* More literally " persons to whom the care of eggs is entrusted." 



