XIII. THE SKED AND HUSK. 223 



coat. But in the walnut and almond, the two outer 

 parts of the husk separate from the interior one, which 

 becomes an apparently independent ' shell. ' So that 

 when first I approached this subject I divided the gen- 

 eral structure of a treasury into three parts husk, shell, 

 and kernel ; and this division, when we once have 

 mastered the main one, will be often useful. But at 

 first let the student keep steadily to his conception of the 

 two constant parts, husk and seed, reserving the idea of 

 shells and kernels for one group of plants only. 



8. It will not be always without difficulty that he 

 maintains the distinction, when the tree pretends to have 

 changed it. Thus, in the chestnut, the inner coat of the 

 husk becomes brown, adheres to the seed, and seems 

 part of it ; and we naturally call only the thick, green, 

 prickly coat, the husk. But this is only one of the 

 deceiving tricks of Nature, to compel our attention more 

 closely. The real place of separation, to her mind, is 

 between the mahogany- coloured shell and the nut itself, 

 and that more or less silky and flossy coating within the 

 brown shell is the true lining of the entire ' husk. ' The 

 paler brown skin, following the rugosities of the nut, is 

 the true sack or skin of the seed. Similarly in the wal- 

 nut and almond. 



9. But, in the apple, two new tricks are played us. 

 First, in the brown skin of the ripe pip, we might im- 

 agine we saw the part correspondent to the mahogany 

 skin of the chestnut, and therefore the inner coat of the 



