140 LETTER X, 



possibility change into a nut. In this plant not 

 only are the stamens and pistils in diiFerent flowers, 

 but in dijBPerent parts of the plant, and organized upon 

 quite a different plan. If you observe attentively 

 those buds of the hazel which grow near the catkins 

 (jig. 1. b. 5.), about the time when the stamens are 

 shedding their pollen, you will perceive some little 

 red threads protruding beyond the points of the buds, 

 and spreading away from the centre ; those are the 

 stigmas, and the pistils are enclosed within their 

 scales, where they are safely protected from accident 

 and cold. At the earliest moment when the stigmas 

 can be discovered, let the scales be removed (^fig. 3.), 

 and you will find the flowers clustered together among 

 a quantity of soft hair, which seems provided as an 

 additional means of shielding them from the weather, 

 and to serve the same purpose as the warm lining of 

 down, which the birds provide for their young when 

 they first break the shell and before they are fledged. 

 Each of these flowers is surrounded by a jagged sort 

 of cup {fig. 4. & 5.), which is originally much shorter 

 than they are, but which in time grows considerably 

 longer ; that cup is the involucre. The flower itself 

 consists of a jagged superior calyx {fig. 5. a.) ; an 

 ovary with two cells and two seeds {fig. C), and 

 two long thread-shaped crimson stigmas. Thus you 

 see the calyx of the pistil-bearing flower is much 

 more perfect than that of the other kind of flower ; 

 but it is still very imperfect. 



The pistils and the stamens being thus separated, 

 there would be no chance of the pollen of the one 



