360 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
remaining extent. The fruit isa drupe; the external covering a 
fleshy husk of one piece, separating into irregular segments; the 
nut, a woody shell, is two-valved ; of very hard ligneous fibre, 
furrowed and wrinkled. The seed—single, erect, and wrinkled by 
the furrows in the shell—is four-lobed at the summit and at the 
base, which thus separates by dissepiments. The exterior en- 
velope is at first whitish, then yellowish green, more or less 
spotted, and is then temarkable for its astringent properties; at 
the earlier stage it is selected for pickling. The embryo is destitute 
of albumen, and erect ; the cotyledons thick, fleshy, oily, bilol 
resembling in figure the convolutions presented by the partuosities 
of the brain of a vertebrated animal. It is these cotyledons 
which form the nut. 
The Walnut-tree was known to the Greeks, and cultivated by 
the Romans, by whom it was much valued for its wood as well as 
for its nut. There is no record of its introduction into Britain; but 
Gerarde tells us that “the green and tender nuts, boyled in sugar and 
eaten as suckade, are a most pleasant and delectable meat, comfort- 
ing to the stomach, and expelling poyson.” Before the introduction — 
of mahogany and rose-wood, walnut was in great estimation, and 
within the last few years it has been restored to its old pre-eminence, 
its favourite purpose, however, being for gun-stocks, for which its 
lightness is its qualification. In many parts of Spain, France, 
Italy, and Germany, the nut forms a great article of food to the 
people. In all these countries the Walnut-tree is extensively - 
vated; the district of the Bergstrasse, between Heidelberg an 
Darmstadt, is almost entirely planted with them, and in some places, 
according to Evelyn, in his days “no young farmer is —s 
marry a wife until he brings proof that he is father of a er" 
number of Walnut-trees.” We need not enlarge on the wel- 
known fruit, although we may quote Cowley on its virtues -— 
“On barren scalps she makes fresh honours grow. 
Her timber is for various uses good : 
The carver she supplies with useful wood : 
She makes the painter’s fading colours last. 
A table she affords us, and repast ; 
E’en while we feast, her oil our lamp supplies. 
The rankest poison by her virtues dies,” : 
