34 
SEEDS OF PLANTS. 
Af-.iny years 
ciiMroverin" 
till- seeds. 
them renew’ed at peiiods that are so little distant, we are still 
more induced to believe that aerolites are formed in our atmos- 
phere. Whatever may be the fact, it is natural to think, after 
the rapid sketch first traced, that the history of aerolites* is 
connected with that of our prejudices and errors, and that it 
even belongs to the history of the world. 
N my last, I merely announced the discovery I had made 
of the astonishing fact, that the seeds of all plants were 
formed in the root only. I shall now endeavour to evince the 
truth of this assertion by shewing the manner, in which they 
are first protruded in the radicle, their progress through the 
root, their passage up the alburnum vessels in the stem, and 
their entrance into the pericarp, while the buds are still in their 
collected state. I shall also shew the necessity of never ad- 
mitting any part to belong to a plant which cannot be traced 
in all its different stages, and many other matters of equal 
importance to the elucidation of a fact of such extreme conse- 
quence to phytology, that, if established, it will fix the root 
as the laboratory of plants, shew where we must seek the 
source of its growth, the cause of most of its disorders, and 
their radical cure ; give us a key to the general formation of 
vegetables of every kind j and, in short, teach us (what we are 
certainly wholly ignorant of) what a plant is. 
I mentioned, in my former letter, how Inany years I have 
been seeking this fact, most difficult to discover, because of 
the very short time the seeds are to he seen in the root, and 
mounting- the alburnum, f'rom watching and cutting (he ra- 
IV. 
The Seeds oj all Plants first formed in the Roots, shewn in a 
Letter from Mrs. Agnes Ibeetson. 
To Mr. Nicholson. 
SIR, 
dicles 
