THE SEED AND HUSK. 153 



tvpe in the pod of a bean, or the globe of a poppy. There 

 are, I believe, flowers in which it is absent or imperfect ; and 

 when it contains only one seed, it may be so small and closely 

 united with the seed it contains, that both will be naturally 

 thought of as one thing only. Thus, in a dandelion, the 

 little brown grains, which may be blown away, each with its 

 silken parachute, are every one of them a complete husk and 

 seed together. But the majority of instances (and those of 

 plants the most serviceable to man) in which the seed-vessel 

 has entirely a separate structure and mechanical power, justify 

 us in giving it the normal term * husk,' as the most widely 

 applicable and intelligible. 



6. The change of green, hard, and tasteless vegetable sub- 

 stance into beautifully coloured, soft, and delicious substance, 

 which produces what we call a fruit, is, in most cases, of the 

 husk only ; in others, of the part of the stalk which immedi- 

 ately sustains the seed; and in a very few instances, not 

 properly a change, but a distinct formation, of fruity substance 

 between the husk and seed. Normally, however, the husk, 

 like the seed, consists always of three parts ; it has an outer 

 skin, a central substance of peculiar nature, and an inner 

 skin, which holds the seed. The main difficulty, in describing 

 or thinking of the completely ripened product of any plant, is 

 to discern clearly which is the inner skin of the husk, and 

 which the outer skin of the seed. The peach is in this respect 

 the best general type, the woolly skin being the outer one 

 of the husk ; the part we eat, the central substance of the 

 husk ; and the hard shell of the stone, the inner skin of the 

 husk. The bitter kernel within is the seed. 



7. In this case, and in the plum and cherry, the two parts 

 under present examination husk and seed separate natu- 

 rally ; the fruity part, which is the body of the husk, adhering 

 firmly to the shell, which is its inner coat. But in the walnut 

 and almond, the two outer parts of the husk separate from 

 the interior one, which becomes an apparently independent 

 * shell. ' So that when first I approached this subject I divided 

 the general structure of a treasury into three parts husk, 

 shell, and kernel ; and this division, when we once have mas- 



