104 LETTER XXXV. 



nut is, before it is opened, cut into four incomplete 

 cells.* 



In the centre, where these imperfect plates cross 

 each other, stands the seed, which in growing adapts 

 itself both to the plates themselves, and to the inequa- 

 lities in the lining of the nut, so that when full grown 

 it is four-lobed, and deeply divided all over by irregu- 

 lar fissures (Jig. 6.). 



The seed, like the ovule, stands erect in the cavity 

 of the nut ; but the embryo is inverted, its base or 

 radicle {fig- 6. «.) being at the point of the seed. The 

 cotvledons are applied face to face, and each partici- 

 pates in the convolutions of the other, until they meet 

 the elevated point of the central plate on which the 

 seed rests ; thence they separate in a downward di- 

 rection, and consequently each pair of shrivelled seed- 

 lobes consists of one cotyledon only. 



* In technical language this nut must be described as consisting of 

 two opposite connate carpels, whose margins at the base are turned in- 

 wards towards the placenta, whence they are partially produced as far 

 as the back of the cavity of the carpel, forming an adhesion with it, and 

 half dividing the cavity into two spurious cells. 



