TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTED ARTICLES. 225 



that the facts so positively affirmed by A. de Jussieu, would need, 

 from a reasonable regard to the interest attaching to them, to be con- 

 firmed by new observations ; but it is possible that the rapid progress 

 made may enable science to bring forward other similar results. 



Such progress can only be the fruit of prolonged study, carried out 

 with care and patience, and applied to a great number of distinct 

 plants. The life of a single botanist would doubtless be insufficient 

 to conduct such inquiries to a satisfactory conclusion ; but the united 

 efforts of many labourers may hasten the solution of the problem. I 

 have desired by these researches to bring my stone to the common 

 edifice. I have no doubt whatever that complementary studies, which 

 can only be the work of time, will succeed in demonstrating in 

 this purely anatomical portion of the history of vegetables, the same 

 principle of which the application to external forms, and to the 

 general constitution of all organised bodies, is the just subject of our 

 admiration : — Variety within unity, not a blind and unregulated 

 variety, but a variety controlled by laws, following in general in re- 

 spect to the appearance of the different forms which it originates, the 

 natural relations of objects. 



There is a group of vegetables, which, whilst sufficiently differing 

 among themselves in the arrangement of the flower and fruit, in the 

 vegetative organs, and in a great number of important characters, 

 nevertheless present certain points of agreement which have caused 

 them to be brought together by a great number of botanists. They 

 are Dicotyledonous plants, whose seed generally contains a copious 

 farinaceous albumen, and an embryo, in most cases considerably de- 

 veloped, surrounding the albumen, contrary to the more usual arrange- 

 ment : in consequence of which singular structure, botanists have 

 united them under the name of GyclospermecE. 



The knowledge of the internal structure of these plants cannot fail 

 to be very precious for the determination of the value of anatomy as 

 an element of classification. Will all these plants be found to offer 

 some general anatomical characters corresponding with their union in 

 a natural group, along with certain special characters belonging to the 

 plants which constitute each family 1 Answered in the affirmative, 

 this question, besides the interest directly attaching to the knowledge 

 of these facts, would tend to confirm the opinion of Mirbel on the 



relations of internal structure with other botanical characters 



W. H. 



