PROCESS OF DEVELOPEMENT. CHAP. IV. 



before its period, it is already complete in all its parts, as may 

 be seen also by the dissection of the bud in winter. 

 Du Hamel, who dissected the bud of a Pear-tree in 

 the month of January describes it as follows : The 

 scales were from twenty-five to thirty in number, 

 enveloping from eight to ten flowers, attached to a 

 common foot-stalk of half a line in length ; the 

 flowers resembled rose-buds set with hairs ; the 

 stamens were distinguished with ease, together 

 with their anthers which were white ; the petals 

 were distinguished with some difficulty ; but the 

 pistils were not yet to be discerned. In the month 

 following the pistils were now discernible, and the 

 anthers had begun to assume a reddish tinge ; the 

 ovary was not perceptible at this early period, but it 

 was perceptible before the evolution of the bud.* 

 Hence, as Grew had before observed, the flowers 

 which are protuded in the spring have been actually 

 formed in the preceding year, being generally of a 

 whitish colour till toward the time of their expan- 

 sion, when the several parts begin to assume their 

 own peculiar shade, and to exhibit their essential 

 traits of character. The calyx and corolla exhibit a 

 structure similar to that of the leaf. The stamens 

 consist merely of a parenchyma enveloped by a fine 

 epidermis, but the filaments are sometimes tubular, 

 as in the Tulip, and sometimes furnished with spiral 

 threads, according to Senebier ;-j~ though I have not 



* Phys. dcs Arb. liv. iii. chap. i. 

 }- Phys. Vcg. vol. ii. p. 6'0. 



