SOLIDS AND FLUIDS OF VEGETABLES. 
127 
In the greater number of vegetables, however, there is no 
germination until after the opening of the pericarp and the fall 
of the seed. The time at which different species of seeds, after 
being committed to the earth, begin to vegetate, varies from one day 
to some years. The seeds of grasses, and the grain like plants, 
as rye, wheat, corn, &c. germinate within two days. The cru- 
ciform plants, such as radish, and mustard, the leguminous, as the 
pea and bean, require a little more time. The peach, walnut, 
and peony, remain in the earth a year before they vegetate. 
All kinds of plants germinate sooner if they are sown imme- 
diately after being separated from their pericarps. 
Most vegetables preserve their vital principle for years : some 
lofce it as soon as they are detached from their pericarps. This 
is said to be the case in the coffee and tea. The seeds of some 
of the grasses, as wheat, &c. are said to retain their vital princi- 
ple even for centuries. It is asserted that mosses kept for near 
two hundred years in the herbariums of botanists, have seemed 
to revive by being soaked in water. An American writer* says, 
that “ seeds, if imbedded in stone or dry earth, and removed 
from the influence of air or moisture, might be made to retain 
their vegetative quality or principle of life for a thousand years.” 
But he very rationally adds, “ life is a property which we do not 
understand ; yet life, however feeble and obscure, is always life, 
and between it and death there is a distance as great as exist- 
ence and nonexistence.” 
LECTURE XVII. 
Solid and Fluid Parts of Vegetables. 
Having considered the organs of the plant, from the root to 
the seed, it might seem as if our inquiries into the vegetable 
substance were terminated ; but we have yet to investigate more 
minutely the internal texture of these various organs. Before 
commencing the study of botany, when you looked at the trunk 
of a tree, a little herb, or a leaf, you perhaps considered it as 
very simple in its structure ; you saw it only as one mass : but 
the embryo as if in a germinating state : the radicle was like a little beak ; 
in the upper part or plume was plainly to be seen the tuft of leaves and the 
stem. 
*B. Barton. 
Solid and fluid part of plants — internal structure — 
