OF DEPOSITS OF NOUR1SHMKNT. 277 



But this state, constant in certain plants, is met with 

 accidentally in others evidently caused by external cir- 

 cumstances ; thus Lotus corniculatus, Plantains, and 

 several other plants, have leaves more fleshy than usual 

 when they grow near the sea. 



It results from this disposition in leaves, that they 

 become receptacles of water, and the plants, thus organ- 

 ized, can consequently support drought much better 

 than others, since they then reabsorb the water of their 

 leaves. Thus eminently succulent plants, as the Ficoids, 

 can support the long drought of the African deserts 

 by a phenomenon nearly analogous to that which 

 enables camels to travel for a long time in the same 

 regions. 



As to fleshy pericarps, it is not easy to determine the 

 use of this particular state to the plant. Does this de- 

 posit of juices, gradually absorbed by the plant, serve 

 to continue the nutrition of the seeds until their matu- 

 rity ? Does it serve, by decomposing it, to favour their 

 coming out of the pericarp, which in fleshy fruits is 

 always indehiscent ? Does it serve, at this period, as a 

 kind of manure to nourish the germinating seeds ? All 

 these opinions are evidently true in certain cases. 



It is rare to see pericarps pass accidentally from a dry 

 to a fleshy state, or vice versa. We can mention a small 

 number of examples ; such as that singular kind of the 

 Almond-peach which sometimes bears upon the same 

 tree fruit with a fibrous pericarp, and others with a 

 fleshy one. But we know a host of examples where 

 plants, very similar in structure, differ in the dry or 

 fleshy nature of their pericarp ; such are the Almond 

 and Peach, Silene and Cucubalus, Hypericum and Andro- 

 soemum, &c. 



The deposits of mucilaginous and feculent matters are 

 as frequent as the preceding ; they may be found in all 



