ON THE STRUCTURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF SEEDS. J 77 



seeking for truth, I may err, but I will never deceive. Since 

 my last discovery, I have been able only to dissect 200 

 seeds ; b-t these and my former studies amount to above 

 2000, and will e./able me to judge in what class the many- 

 cotyledons are found. I shall now therefore begin with 

 the description of the formation of the corculura of each dif- 

 ferent class. 



The first is the mamraiferous. It includes plants of a 1st class, 

 very strong and vigoroas form and nature, not only in trees Mammiferaj, 

 and shrubs, but in smaller plants. The oak, beech, elm, 

 horse-chestnut, &c. ; the laurel, rose, budlea, &c. ; burdock, 

 sun-flower, and many of the order pentandria digynia, that 

 are spreading and vigorous. This seed has a remarkably The seed de- 

 large heart, into which the juices are conveyed by the nou- scribed, 

 risiiing vessels. In the corculum is found that curious part, 

 wh.'ch resembles the breast of a bitch ; with teats (a^. far as 

 I have been able to discover) numerous according to the 

 strength of the plant. Over the teats are the nourishing 

 vessels, and so much juice do they impart to these curious 

 forms, that the recess is often inundated with the juice that 

 runs through them. What effect this straining may have on 

 the liquid is easy to imagine, and that from crude and 

 harsh it may become both sweet and emollient. It may also 

 be more intimately mixed, and thus form in those spaces 

 gasses suited to the object to be nourished. There is found 

 in this species of heart from 12 to 16 teats, which bleed in 

 three or four places. The recess is discovered at the back 

 of the corculura, and through the middle of it passes that 

 line, which afterward is called the stalk of the plant, and 

 is now only the line of life ; and one row of wood vessels, 

 covered by the circular skin of cotyledons, or of that matter 

 which forms them. See Fig. 6. This recess is the place 

 where the cotyledons are mostly formed, and from which 

 they branch, while the primordial leaves proceed from the 

 interior line. This structure plainly proves, that the nou- 

 rishing vessels are the feeders of both cotyledons and pri- 

 mordial leaves. All the fruits have a heart of this kind, and 

 many cotyledons. Most of the carices and wheat are of this 

 class. Ft is curious, that in this not only the latter but the 

 former leaves will appear, and burst through the thickness 

 Vol. XXVII.— Nov. 1810. N observed 



