SEED. 
119 
mere point or dot, and in some cases, altogether invisible to the 
naked eye. The embryo consists of two parts. 
The Plume, which is the ascending part, unfolding itself into 
herbage. 
The Radicle, or descending part which unfolds itself into 
roots. 
To use the words of an ancient botanist ; “ the embryo contin- 
ues 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 roll’d, 
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 ravel’d bud, fine film, and fibre-line, 
Traced with nice pencil on the small design. 
The young Narcissus, in its bulb compress’d, 
Cradles a second nestling on its breast ; 
In whose fine arms a younger embryo lies, 
Folds its thin leaves, and shuts its floret-eyes ; 
Grain within grain successive harvests dwell, 
And boundless forests slumber in a shell.”* 
There are various appendages which may, or may not be pre- 
sent without injury to the structure of tiic seed. 
Aigrette or Egret sometimes called pappus, is a kind of fea- 
thery crown with which many of the compound flowers are 
furnished, evidently for the purpose of disseminating the seed 
to a considerable distance by means of winds ; as the dandelion. 
It includes all that remains on the top of the seed after the co- 
rolla is removed. 
Stipe is a thread connecting the egret with the seed. The 
egret is said to be sessile when it has no stipe, simple when it 
consists of a bundle of hairs without branches, plumose when 
* These lines which so beautifully set forth the manner in which the em- 
bryo is contained within the seed or bulb, are not entirely philosophical as 
to the fact of the future generations lying enfolded the one within the other; 
it is true, that we may in many seeds, by the help of a microscope, discern 
the form of the future plant, and even the embryo flower; but we cannot 
believe that, in the seed of that embryo flower, is the miniature image of 
another plant, which contains another, and so on through successive gene- 
rations ; for the fact is established that a seed does not produce a plant 
without being fertilized by the pollen. We may say that a seed contains 
within itself the elements of future generations ; but not their images, ex- 
cept that of the immediate plant which is to issue from the perfected seed. 
Divisions of the embryo — Appendages to seeds — Egret — Stipe — 
