176 PASQUE-FLOWER. 



and the showers will soon perfect her ma- 

 tron beauty, and then he who passes by 

 may see small feathery seeds, waiting only 

 for a passing breeze to waft them from off 

 the dowTiy receptacle, round which the pe- 

 tals circled. And here it may, perhaps, be 

 well to speak concerning the wonderful 

 arrangement of the vegetable kingdom, by 

 means of which, each seed has its ovini pe- 

 culiar facilities for finding a lodgment in the 

 earth. Every seed, then, consists of four 

 different parts, the cotyledon or seed-lobe, 

 the heart or corculum placed within the 

 seed-lobe, the eye or hilmn, a sort of ex- 

 ternal scar, and, lastly, the seed-coat or 

 arillus. Each of these dissimilar parts has 

 a separate function to perform, and is es- 

 sential to the development of even the 

 smallest seed. The cotyledons nourish the 

 young plant when it expands witliin the 

 earth ; they furnish, likewise, the first leaves, 



