'98 LETTER VII. 



to learn whether there are two cotyledons in the 

 embryo or only one (see page 13) ; believe me, how- 

 ever, we have not yet arrived at so disheartening a 

 point. There are in fact many ways of shewing you 

 how to determine whether this is an Exogenous plant 

 or not, without counting the seed-leaves. That 

 which I select is one of the easiest to understand; 

 but I must first mention a few matters that I have 

 not hitherto touched upon. 



You are no doubt acquainted with some of the idle 

 tales that are told by the ancient poets, of people 

 being changed into trees, or animals, or rocks ; one 

 voung lady for example, not only cried her eyes out, 

 but was altogether changed into a running stream, 

 and another was transformed into a spider, be- 

 cause she dared to emulate the goddess of ^dsdom in 

 tent-stitch ; these occurrences they called Metamor- 

 phoses, a name which Botanists have borrowed for 

 something of a similar nature which really does hap- 

 pen in plants. Hitherto 'I have always spoken of the 

 different parts of the floAver as so many totally distinct 

 organs, and it is undoubtedly true that the petals, 

 stamens, and pistil have very different offices to per- 

 form. But, at the same time, it seems equally certain 

 that all those, and several other parts, are in a very 

 great degree constructed like leaves ; that at a very 

 early period, when they were first formed, they were 

 absolutely the same as leaves of the same age ; that it 

 is only after they have been growing for some time 

 that they begin to assume the characters under which 

 they finally appear ; and that consequently they are 



