THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 509 



prepare for the little plant, issuing from the egg, nourish- 

 ment appropriate to its delicacy till it can itself take up 

 its food from the soil. There are usually only one or two. 



When the cotyledons are little developed their alimen- 

 tary function is intrusted to another organ, the perisperm. 

 This, which G^ertner compared very rightly to the albumen 

 of the egg, varies a good deal as to its volume and consist- 

 ence. In the cocoa-palm it is in part milky. Our bread 

 is made from the farinaceous perisperm of the wheat; our 

 coffee is only the same part from the horny seed of the 

 coffee-tree of Arabia. 



Plants are known, the perisperm of which is of a firm- 

 ness much surpassing that of the coffee-tree. Such is the 

 case with the seeds of the Corozo, in which this structure 

 is as white and hard as ivory ; owing to this fact different 

 objects are made from it in trade Avhich are put forward 

 as being fabricated from this substance. This peculiarity 

 has procured for the Corozo palm the name of the elepliant- 

 plant (Phytelephas), and for its fruit, cargoes of which are 

 brought to France, that of vegetable ii-ory. 



It was Leuwenhoeck who first of all noticed that the 

 seed contains the young plant in miniature, traced out in 

 the midst of its envelopes, and only waiting for favouring 

 circumstances to expand its leaves and flowers. Thus, 

 looking philosophically at the subject, we may say that 

 certain plants are viviparous. There are even some in 

 which the impatience of the embryo is so great, that in 

 order to reach the air and light more quickly, it precipi- 

 tately escapes from its egg while this still adheres to the 

 mother. 



This peculiarity is seen in the mangroves {Rhizophora 

 ^//?;iWor?-/w'^«, Linn.), strange plants, half-tree,half-fish, living 

 half-plunged in the sea or the lagoons of tropical America 



