92 
SEED. 
d the tigelle^ axis^ or stem, with its Tiode at 5, crowDed with 
the bud to be developed into the plumule. 
To use the words of an ancient botanist, " The embryo con- 
tinues imprisoned within its seed, and remains in a profound 
sleep, until, awakened by germination, it meets the light and 
air, to grow into a plant similar to its parent." 
" Lo ! on each seed, within its slender rind, 
Life's golden threads in endless circles wind; 
Maze within maze the lucid webs are rolled, 
And as they burst, the living flame unfold. 
The pulpy acorn, ere it swells, contains 
The oak's vast branches in its milky veins, 
Each raveled bud, fine film, and fiber-line. 
Traced with nice pencil on the small design. 
The young Narcissus, in its bulb compressed^ 
Cradles a second nestling on its breast ; 
In whose fine arms a younger embryo lies, 
Folds its tliin leaves, and shuts its floret-eyes ; 
Grain within grain, successive harvests dwell, 
And boundless forests slumber in a shell 
102. There are various appendages which may, or may not, 
be present without injury to the structure of the seed. Ai- 
grette^ or egret^ sometimes called pajppus^ is a kind of feathery 
crown with which many of the compound flowers are furnished, 
evidently for the purpose of disseminating the seed to a consid- 
erable distance, by means of winds ; as the dandelion, and others 
of the Compositse family. The egret includes all that remains 
on the top of the seed after the corolla is removed, and is sup- 
posed to be the attenuated frame-work of the limb of the calyx. 
Btijpe^ is a thread connecting the egret with the seed. The 
egret is said to be sessile when it has no stipe, simpile when it 
consists of a bundle of hairs without branches, plumose when 
each hair has other little hairs arranged along its sides like the 
beards on a feather. 
In Fig. 118, a repre- 
sents the capillary, or 
hair-like egret ; i is a 
pedicelled egret ; c and 
d show the style re- 
maining, and forming 
a plumose train, as in 
the virgin's-b<nver and 
Geum ; e a wing, as 
may be seen in the fir ; 
/*, a sessile egret. 
• These lines, which so beautifully set forth the manner in which the embryo is contained within the 
ieed or bulb, are not strictly philosophical, as to the fact of the future generations lying infolded the 
one within the other ; it is true that we may in many seeds discern the form of the future plant, but we 
cannot believe that this miniature image contains another embryo, and so on through successive genera- 
tions ; for the fact is established, that a seed does not produce a i)lant without being fertilized by the 
pollen. We may say that a seed contains within itself the elevicnts of future generations ; but not 
their images, except that of the immediate plant which is to issue from the perfected seed. 
Fig. 118. 
102. Appendages to the seed — Stipe. 
