Bibliography. 185 



and the outside rind is the primine. Between the rind (primine) and 

 shell (secundine) is the fleshy mass, or edible part. This is not con- 

 sidered as one of the coats, being the fungus-like thickening of the 

 rind. As an edible fruit, the naming is different. Then the primine 

 is called the exocarp ; the secundine, endocarp ; and the interposed 

 fleshy mass is the sarcocarp. The five coats which are made of the 

 ovule, if it is true that they are always present, are exceedingly differ- 

 ent in thickness. It may be well to imagine their existence, for the 

 sake of convenient analogy, whether or not they have always been 

 found. In case of the wheat, we find that a coat or two, (perhaps the 

 whole five,) and the outside achenous or stigma-bearing one, produce, 

 in miller's language, shorts, bran, and kernelle, by grinding. But who 

 can make out the achenous tunic, bearing the stigma, and within it the 

 primine, secundine, tertine, quartine, and quintine ? The nucleus or 

 simple seed, (wheat,) we know to be principally amylaceous and glu- 

 tinous albumen, from the quantity of flour it gives, which is almost a 

 pure mixture of starch and gluten (paste)." 



Other parts of the work are consistent with this ludicrous jumble. 

 Thus, on page 236, we read of the peach, &c. that the " seed is the 

 putamen and its contents within the sarcocarp (fleshy part) of a drupe :" 

 and on pa^e 234, " all seeds have this outer tegument, (testa or pri- 

 mines,) excepting the coniferecs, as pine trees, &c." Also page 253, 

 where the Coniferse are said to have " seeds purely naked, not covered 

 by testa, nor a skin-like envelope ;" and, lest the idea should not be 

 distinctly apprehended, a note informs us, that " all seeds but those of 

 this order have a testa, skin, or membranous covering. These, and 

 these only, are truly naked. The gymnospermia of Class Didynamia 

 are naked as it respects the pericarp. But the seeds of that order have 

 the covering here referred to." Parietal placenta, we learn from pao-e 

 6, " means that the placenta forms a kind of wall about ovules." It 

 can hardly be necessary to make further extracts to justify the remark 

 which we premised. Ignorance of the rudiments of structural botany 

 is of itself no disgrace ; but when young ladies write, and learned 

 professors supervise such books as that before us, we are reminded of 

 the title of a chapter, we believe in Fielding, " showing that an author 

 writes all the better for having some knowledge of the subject of which 

 he treats." 



5, Hooker''s Journal of Botany. — The fourth volume of this inter- 

 esting periodical commenced with the number for June last ; which is 

 occupied with a translation of a paper by Martins, on the Botany of 

 Brazil, and with the first portion of a very important paper, by Mr. J. 

 Smith, of Kew, entitled " An arrangement and definition of the Genera 



Vol. xLii, No. 1.— Oct.-Dec. 1841. 24 



