156 THEORY OF THE 



the foot-stalks of abortive leaves ; and that the pistil 

 with its summit is only a midrib denuded of its rind 

 at the tip ; while the seed organ is the expanded leaf- 

 plate of the leaf folded with its upper surface inwards, 

 round the axis, and having its edges united and ad- 

 hering. 



A leaf thus folded up into a seed-organ is termed a 

 carpel ! , the adhering edges forming the verge 2 , and 

 buds upon these two edges forming two rows of 

 nascent seeds. In some plants several leaves are said 

 to be thus folded into a carpel, and hence the number 

 of- verges will correspond to those of the folded leaf- 

 edges. 



The cause assigned by De Candolle for this meta- 

 morphosis of leaves into flowers and fruit, is degeneracy, 

 or, as Professor Lindley terms it, stunting ; the parts 

 of a flower being, therefore, abortive leaves. " A 

 flower," says Mr. Lindley, "is in reality a stunted 

 branch, that is, one, the growth of which is checked, 

 and its power of elongation destroyed." ff The fruit is 

 in common language, the flower, or some part of it, 

 arrived at its most complete state of existence ; and, 

 consequently is itself a portion of a stunted branch." 



It would be, I conceive, an unprofitable waste of 

 time to expose the absurdity of these fancies, which 

 have been generated by the erroneous logic of raising 

 analogies into realities. The analogical resemblances are 

 tolerably made out ; but we would not surely conclude, 

 that a butterfly is really a bird, or a bat, or a flying 

 fish, because the wings are analogous, no more than we 



(1) In Latin, Carpellum. (2) In Latin, Placenta. 



