PHANEROGAMIA : FLOWERS, 451 



fruit must be explained from the construction of the germen, but in 

 the application all went awry again, because he did not understand 

 the structure of the germen itself. Neither he nor any of his fol- 

 lowers had philosophic training enough to abstract the general law 

 from the isolated concrete cases, and yet it lay near enough when it 

 was seen that the fruit could not be understood without a knowledge of 

 its development, that consequently this must apply also to the germen. 

 But a great obstacle met them there : it would have required microscopic 

 research, and that was too inconvenient. By the hasty examination of 

 a few monstrosities, and the spinning of a pretty fiction, the goal was 

 sooner arrived at : thus arose the prejudice that every germen must be 

 composed of foliar organs, and thereby every correct treatment of the 

 theory was cut short. 



More recently Mirbel, Desvaux, and Dumortier have given great Fruit 

 Systems, but fortunately without their most barbarous words finding 

 an entrance into science. Lindley alone has taken the pains to establish 

 some of them, partly with new definitions. But he also, in their practical 

 application, for instance, in his Natural System, is reasonable enough to 

 leave the whole really quite insufferable wilderness of names out of the 

 question. A few expressions have again been brought into use recently 

 by Endlicher. On the whole, however, in most of the best authors,, we find 

 no terms besides those printed in spread italics in the paragraphs. Re- 

 viewing the treasure we have acquired, and the application we make of 

 it, it must be confessed that we are still the slaves of the language of 

 common life, since scarcely one technical term is established except those 

 taken from it. All the rest rock about without principle or consistency. 

 The capsules, so very diverse in the number of their cells and seeds, in the 

 construction of the septa, mode of attachment of the seeds, superior or 

 inferior, with the most varied kind of dehiscence, we call capsules ; but, 

 faithful to common language, we distinguish them only as pod, husk, or 

 shell from the most unimportant characters. For the remarkable struc- 

 ture of Hovenia dulcis and Anacardium we have no special term ; but the 

 Fig has a proper title, because it comes into the domain of the table. 

 Utriculus, achcenium, cari/opsis, are distinguished by the most trifling 

 characteristics ; but the Palms have berries and drupes, and under these 

 are united the Cocoa-nut, the Date, and the fruit of Sagus and Lepido- 

 carya. Every botanist, even only a beginner, must be terrified at the 

 slightest reflection on the unbearable terminology which must arise if 

 men continue to name such distinctions as those between utriculus, ac/ice- 

 nium, and caryopsis, with special names. The above arrangement of 

 technical terms affords sufficient opportunity for such remarks. What 

 totally different things are denominated by the expression strobilus, for 

 instance! Of the superior capsule, often from the most trifling distinc- 

 tions, nine kinds ; of the inferior, only one, and that has not yet received a 

 special name from any one. Folliculus and legumen are only distinguished 

 through the dehiscence of the dorsal suture in the latter ; but the most 

 essential distinction, whether a capsule generally tears regularly or 

 wholly irregularly, as, for instance, in Nicandra, is altogether disre- 

 garded. A completely inferior fruit (in Conipositce] is named achcenium^ 

 as well as a quarter of a fruit, formed of half a carpel, in a superior 

 fruit (in Boraginacece). Drupasm&tryma are distinguished solely through 

 the ignorance of the author of the latter name ; since in Juglans there 

 is never even an indication of a second cell, which is wholly impossible 

 with the single basilar seed-bud. Nuculanimn is a word merely intro- 



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