86 REPRODUCTION OF PLANTS. 



64. The ovary of the pistil becomes what bo- 

 tanists call the Pericarp of the fruit ; it has a 

 great variety of names, dependant on the num- 

 ber of carpels, their situation, the quality of their 

 texture, &c. 



65. The Seed is the perfected ovule, it is co- 

 vered with an integument, which is sometimes 

 curiously spread out so as to form wings, and 

 contains the embryo lying in it as the embryo 

 chick is in the egg, and often similarly sur- 

 rounded by the albumen which affords its nou- 

 rishment. 



66. Spores. The principal organs of repro- 

 duction in those plants, called Acrogens or Floiv- 

 erless, which are destitute of stamens and pistils, 

 are called spores, these are cells which are seen 

 by a microscope to be analogous to a grain of pol- 

 len ; the cases containing them are termed thecff- 

 or sporangia. 



Sori are clusters of thecae, and the Indusiwm 

 is a portion of the epidermis which encloses 

 them. 



67. The reproduction of plants is of two 

 kinds, that by seed and that by division, which 

 is either natural or artificial and will afterwards 

 be noticed. When the flower is fully developed, 

 a period which arrives in different kinds of 



