112 LETTER VIII. 



that it is the very part you had just before been feast- 

 ing upon in the Strawberry. In the one case, the 

 receptacle robs the carpels of all their juice, in order 

 to become gorged and bloated at their expense ; in the 

 other case, the carpels act in the same selfish manner 

 upon the receptacle. 



Another plant very like Cinquefoil is Avens (Geum), 

 one species of which, called the Herb Bennet (G. 

 urbanum), is common enough in hedge-rows. It 

 grows a foot or two high, and has the leaves upon the 

 stem in three lobes, while those at the bottom of it 

 are in many divisions. The flower of this plant is so 

 extremely like that of Cinquefoil, that you could not 

 distinguish the two. But its fruit is a sort of bur, 

 composed of innumerable stiff bristles, which all 

 spring from one common centre, and are terminated 

 by hooks at the point. The bristles are the styles 

 which, like those of the Geranium, have grown stiff 

 and long ; and the hooks are the hardened points of 

 them where they have curved back, and separated 

 from an upper portion which drops off. The central 

 part is a mass of carpels, the receptacle of which is 

 hard and dry. 



A beautiful mountain plant, frequently met with in 

 the Alps of Europe, called Mountain Avens (Sieversia 

 montana), and often seen in gardens, where it is cul- 

 tivated for its larg-e vellow flowers, and its diminu- 

 tive stems covered with large deeply-lobed leaves, 

 offers a further instance of the changes which the 

 fruit of the Rose tribe undergoes between youth and 

 old age. When the fruit of Mountain Avens is ripe, 



