FLOWER AND FRUIT. 205 



LESSON 92. 



Flower and Fruit. 



Fil'iform, thread like, or very slender. 



Ves'icle, a small cuticle, filled or inflated, or a little bladder. 



Go, mark the matchless working of the Power 

 That shuts within the seed the future flower ; 

 Bids these in elegance of form excel, 

 In colour these, and those delight the smell ; 

 Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, 

 To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes. 



COWPER. 



LiNN^us classed the flower and fruit together, and defined 

 them to be a temporary part of vegetables, destined for the 

 reproduction of the species, terminating the old individual 

 and beginning the new. These constitute the reproduc- 

 tive organs, by which the species have been hitherto pre- 

 served from extinction, and by which alone they will be re- 

 newed, so long as seed time and harvest continue. There 

 are seven of these organs, some of which are essential to the 

 very nature of flower or fruit, others not so indispensably 

 necessary, and therefore not universal. The student, who 

 wishes to gain an adequate idea of these organs, should dis- 

 sect diff*erent flowers, and bestow upon each part a separate 

 examination. He will find externally the cal'yx or flower- 

 cup, usually of a green colour, and often wanting; the 

 corol'la, or as it is sometimes termed the blossom, assuming 

 various shades of colour, exhibiting a more delicate texture 

 than the preceding, and like it sometimes wanting ; the 

 stamens, which are filiform organs arranged interior to the 

 corolla, and are never wanting; i\\e pistils, arising from the 

 centre of the flower, containing the rudiments of the fruit, 

 and of course essential ; the seed-vessel, of a pulpy, woody, 

 or leathery texture, enclosing the seeds, but wanting in many 

 plants ; the scad, the perfecting of which is the sole end of 

 all the other parts ; and the receptacle, or base, which is the 

 point oficonnexion, and must necessarily be present in some 

 form or other. 



The corolla constitutes the chief beauty of a flower, and 

 includes two parts, the Petal and the Nectary. The former 

 18 



