THE OAK TRIBE. 143 



perished remaining like little brown specks, sticking 

 to the top of the cell of the nut. 



In the Sweet Ches?iut, alterations in character, and 

 the destruction of one thing by another are carried 

 still further. In that plant, the involucre, which, 

 when full-grown, is a hollow case, covered over with 

 rigid spines, was in the beginning a number of little 

 leaves which gradually grew together as in the Beech ; 

 they kept acquiring with their age a greater degree of 

 rigidity ; their veins separated, and formed clusters 

 of spines, till at last the whole surface of the husk 

 was covered with little spiny stars ; each star was 

 in the beginning a leaf, and its rays the veins of the 

 leaf. The pistils each contained six or seven cells, 

 with a couple of ovules in each ; yet the ripe nut has 

 only one seed : so that in the course of the growth 

 of a chesnut no fewer than six cells, and thirteen 

 ovules are destroyed by the seed which actually 

 grows. 



I feel sure you will now agree with me, that if any 

 plants can be said to exhibit themselves in a masque- 

 rade dress, these are they ; for without this expla- 

 nation, who could have supposed that the husk of 

 the filbert, of the beech, and of the chesnut, were 

 all of the same nature, and constructed upon the 

 same plan as the cup of the acorn ; and especially, 

 who could have supposed that the chesnut, with its 

 single seed, could ever have originated from an ovary 

 of seven cells and fourteen ovules. 



It is among these trees that you will find the best 

 specimens of the Exogenous structure of the wood of 



