J.T'^ ON THE STRUCTURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF SEEDS. 



meteorological observations : and as these phenomena have 

 been for a long time one of the principal objects of my at- 

 tention and study, I purpose to explain in the ]ast part of 

 this paper the connexion, that may exist between the indi- 

 cations of the aerial electroscope, when properly settled, and 

 many atrnospheric phenomena^ which are daily observed, 

 without being really understood. 

 Ajhfield^ near Honiton, 

 23d August, 1810. 



II. 



Qyi the Structure and Classification of Seeds. Jn a Letter 

 from Mrs. Agnes Ibbetson. 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 

 SIR, 



I 



NOW once more trouble you on the subject of seeds, 

 desirous of completing the task assigned to me, and finish- 

 ing the sketch I began in my last. As in that 1 was careful 

 to confine myself within those laws, which are applicable to 

 the interior of the embryo ; in this I shall take a different 

 Variouskinds path, and show the various kinds of corculum into which all 

 •f «orcu!um. ^eed'^ are divided, atid thence the various classes they might 

 form: indicating the interior marks, which would diversify 

 each different class, the very mechanism of which is so va- 

 rious, though so well defined, as to strike the mind with 

 the appearance of a natural method ; by which means might 

 be established, without any difficulty, an arrangement, 

 which would enable botanists to add them in an appropriate 

 word to the Linnaean or any other classification preferred in 

 giving the description of plants. Certainly, as I before ob- 

 served, it is strange to give an elaborate description of every 

 part of the exterior of the plant, even the most insignificant, 

 and leave out the most important, the interior of the seed ; 

 that which is the very essence of it (for so the embryo may 

 be called). In our best works of the kind no notice is taken 

 of the heart or cotyledons^ or of the division so well known 

 ' to gardeners of leaf seeds. 



To 



