224 PROSERPINA. 



husk. But it is not so. The brown skin of the pips be- 

 longs to them properly, and is all their own. It is the 

 true skin or sack of the seed. The inner coat of the 

 husk is the smooth, white, scaly part of the core that 

 holds them. 



Then, for trick number two. We should as naturally 

 imagine the skin of the apple, which we peel off, to be 

 correspondent to the skin of the peach ; and therefore, 

 to be the outer part of the husk. But not at all. The 

 outer part of the husk in the apple is melted away into 

 the fruity mass of it, and the red skin outside is the skin 

 of its stalk, not of its seed-vessel at all ! 



10. I say ' of its stalk,' that is to say, of the part of 

 the stalk immediately sustaining the seed, commonly 

 called the torus, and expanding into the calyx. In the 

 apple, this torus incorporates itself with the husk com- 

 pletely ; then refines its own external skin, and colours 

 that variously and beautifully, like the true skin of the 

 husk in the peach, while the withered leaves of the 

 calyx remain in the c eye ' of the apple. 



But in the ' hip ' of the rose, the incorporation with 

 the husk of the seed does not take place. The torus, or, 

 as in this flower from its peculiar form it is called, the 

 tube of the calyx, alone forms the frutescent part of the 

 hip ; and the complete seeds, husk and all, (the firm 

 triangular husk enclosing an almond-shaped kernel,) are 

 grouped closely in its interior cavity, while the calyx re- 

 mains on the top in a large and scarcely withering star. 



