SECT. II. PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 21 



But it had been also observed that seeds which 

 have lost their cotyledons by means of the depre- 

 dations of insects do not germinate ; and that ve- 

 getation also ceases if the plant is too soon deprived 

 of its cotyledons or seminal leaves, even after the 

 radicle has become a perfect root.* It follows 

 therefore that the nutriment necessary to the de- 

 velopement of the plantlet either originally exists 

 in, or intermediately passes through, the coty- 

 ledons. 



But if the nutriment destined to the support of First to 

 the plantlet passes through the cotyledons, to what 

 part of the plantlet is it first conveyed ? This is 

 to be ascertained by tracing the fibres dispersed 

 throughout the lobes, to their point of union and 

 junction with the plantlet, which according to the 

 most accurate dissection is the upper extremity of 

 the radicle.-^ The nutriment therefore destined 

 to the support of the plantlet first enters the radicle, 

 and is afterwards conducted to the plumelet. Eller, 

 indeed, has maintained that there are vessels in the 

 seed passing immediately from the cotyledons to 

 the plumelet. But later anatomists have not been 

 able to discover them. Even the patient and in- 

 defatigable Hedwig could find no traces of any- 

 such vessels. It is to be presumed therefore that 

 they do not exist. But a still stronger ground of 

 presumption is that, in the phenomena of the ger~ 



* Seneb. Phys. Veg. p. 373. 



t Crew's Anat. of Plants, book. i. sect. 23. 



