254 BIOLOGY. 



contains all the bodies that have been named, viz. flour, 

 acids and sugar. It is thus chemically also the synthetic 

 fruit, which rnay be converted into the whole animal 

 flesh, and thus become a true medium of nutrition. 

 The nut is only garbage, the plum and berry, cherry and 

 grape, only drinks or delicacies. 



1345. Other vegetable substances, which range lower 

 in chemical development, as mucus, bitter and colouring 

 matters, with resins, are associated for the greatest part in 

 root, stalk and leaves. 



FRUIT OF THE FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 



1346. The flowerless or a-sexual plants can have 

 no genuine seed or no embryo. For the genuine seed 

 is the repetition of the blossom under the idea of root. 

 (Ed. 1st, 1810. $ 1564.) 



1347. That which has been called germinal powder is 

 no seed or germ, but only albumen or perisperm. It has 

 no seed-petiole, has only been exuded out of what has 

 been called the wall of the capsule, and exhibits in its 

 composition no seed-lobes. (Ed. 1st. 1586.) 



1348. What is termed capsule in the Acotyledones is 

 none other than the seed-shell, whereupon it follows of 

 itself, that the so-called seeds can have no umbilical cords 

 or seed-petioles. (Ed. 1st; 1810. 1573.) 



1349. The capsules of ferns are involuted like most 

 dicotyledonous seeds. The ring corresponds to the seed- 

 rib or raphe, the fissure to the seed-aperture or micro- 

 pyle. The involuted fern-capsule is a repetition of the 

 involuted fern-frond. The little heaps of capsules or 

 sori are consequently not pollen, but a nest of seeds sur- 

 rounded by an indusium or veil, which, probably, corre- 

 sponds to the ovary. 



1350. The capsule of mosses is an antetype of mono- 

 cotyledonous seeds ; it is a spathe-leaf with the lateral 

 suture ; it springs up in a tubular manner similar to 

 grass-leaves, that free themselves from the nodes of the 

 culm. 



1351. The hollow columella, which likewise con- 



