SEEDS OV PLANTS, 
41 
ihe spiral wire, and that in this respect it may be compared to 
the muscles of an animal, which can be animated by the 
galvanic trough a certain time after death ; so does the spiral 
wire retain its vital energy for a little time, longer, or shorter* 
according to the form of the plant, and preserve its mechanical 
vigour after the line has ceased to exist. To see the effect of To shew the 
° . , mechanism 
this mechanism m plants, 1 always prefer the most common, prefer corn- 
provided they are well-nourished and healthy. Exotics will 
often produce more extraordinary and elegant contrivances, 
but the plants of the country have most vigour, and their 
mechanism is, in general, in admirable order ; there is a great 
difference in the operations performed on an exotic, and a 
native. The pistil and stamen do not accommodate each other 
in the former, as in the latter ; the spiral wire does not contract 
or dilate with that vigour j the wood does no move with equal 
energy, or the gatherers turn with equal force ; and there is 
no part in which the mechanism is so much excited as in the 
throwing or moving up of the seeds in the alburnum vessel ; 
it appears to be the grand effort in which all its energies are 
engaged ; every part of the plant conduces to this effect, and 
lends its assistance to its completion. I am almost angry with 
myself, when I think how many things would have suggested 
the discovery of the seeds in the root, that I puzzled about it so 
long in endeavouring to ffnd their origin j since the leopard 
lilies which form their seeds up the stem, and the crinums 
which collect them so far down the stalk, should have taught 
me, that the pericarp and flower were not necessary to their 
formation*. 
I was in hopes of shewing how the pollen passes up the Respecting 
•tern, which I did not do in my last, though I have now dis- 
covered that in trees and shrubs it is protruded in the tap-root, 
• It is a very common thing, particularly in the firs, to find a single 
cone growing out at the bottom of tlie tree, unattended with any 
branch or leaves : what a proof this is, of the seeds coining from the 
root, when asingle collection has been able to pierce through bark and 
rind, and display themselves without further accompaniment. 
and 
