92 
LADIES BOTANY AND BOTANY FOR LADIES. 
the one on the other. You could not hybri- 
dize a Geranium with a Pelargonium, nor 
those Pelargoniums which have fleshy tumours 
for stems with such as have slender stems, nor 
even a Gooseberry with a Currant; but to the 
power of intermixing the slender stemmed 
real Pelargoniums there seems to be no limit. 
" That nature acted thus, long before man 
discovered her secret, there can be no doubt, 
for winds and insects are as skilful hybridizers 
as we are ; and the different races of apples, 
pears, and other fruit, which have in all ages 
sprung up in gardens, are, no doubt, indebted 
for their origin to such circumstances ; but 
it is only in modern times that this mode of 
proceeding has been reduced within certain 
rules, and that hybridizing has become a fixed 
and useful art." — Lindley, pp. 40, 41. 
When we say we deny the facts, we allude 
to the statement of the offspring of two dis- 
similar plants being like neither of them, but 
intermediate ; because we, who have can'ied 
out the practice many years, know right well 
that there will be plants like both parents, 
and often every conceivable grade between 
the two besides. However, this is immaterial. 
With a notice of the Walnut-tree, we shall 
close our extracts from this work : — 
"The stamen-bearing flowers are on one 
part of the branch, and the pistil-bearing on 
another, as in the Oak and its allies. The former 
are arranged in thick, green, curved, cylin- 
drical spikes, consisting of very short pedicles, 
bearing obliquely on one side about twelve 
stalkless broad anthers, surrounded by about 
six green scales. These spikes fall off soon 
after the anthers have burst and discharged 
their pollen. 
" The pistil-bearing flowers grow in clusters 
of two, three, or more, and are composed of 
an oval, downy ovary, crowned by a minute 
four-lobed calyx, four very small petals, and a 
pair of fringed stigmas, curved in opposite 
directions. The interior of the. ovary presents 
a minute cavity, in which is one erect, egg- 
shaped ovule, seated on a pale lobed substance, 
a longitudinal section of which is extremely 
similar in form to the Russian eagle. The 
latter substance may be supposed to con- 
tribute to the nutrition of the embryo, but its 
use has not been yet sufficiently inquired into. 
" In course of time, the stamen-bearing 
flowers fall off, as has already been stated, the 
pistil-bearing flowers alter their appearance, 
lose their stigmas and all trace of a calyx and 
petals, become much increased in size, and at 
last change to clusters of oblong, deep-green, 
fleshy cases, which crack irregularly and drop, 
leaving behind them the pale brown tesselated 
nuts, that are sold in the fruiterers' shops. 
Examine one of these nuts, with which you 
ought to be well acquainted, because it is of 
such every day occurrence ; and you will find 
that it might serve as a text for a long and 
curious disquisition. With only the most 
striking points, however, do I propose to oc- 
cupy your attention. 
" The nut of the Walnut-tree, deprived of its 
outer fleshy shell, is of the same nature as the 
stone of a peach or plum ; that is to say, it is 
the innermost layer of the seed-vessel, grown 
very hard, and separating from the outer 
layer. At a very early period, the two layers 
formed but one homogeneous body ; and when 
the inside began to harden, without any cor- 
responding change in the outside, still the two 
held firmly together by a network of veins, 
the impressions of which give rise to the 
channels that divide the surface of the nut 
into numerous irregular compartments. 
" In one respect the nut of the Walnut differs 
essentially from the stone of a peach. In the 
latter it is not divisible into valves ; in the 
former it readily separates into two equal valves. 
These are an evidence, although only one ovule 
is present, that this fruit is in reality made up 
of two carpels, as was indicated by its two re- 
curved stigmas. Now examine the valves 
separately; each is cut off from the other at 
the base, by an imperfect partition that rises 
up from the very bottom ; but, above the base, 
they freely communicate with each other. 
Their inner surface is marked by numerous 
elevations and hollows, of a most irregular 
arrangement, besides which a small plate, origi- 
nating in the partition at the base, but stand- 
ing at right angles to it, curves upwards, and 
cuts each valve imperfectly into two cells ; so 
that, what with the partition at the base, and 
the plates at right angles with it, the interior 
of the nut is, before it is opened, cut into four 
incomplete cells.* 
" In the centre, where these imperfect plates 
cross each other, stands the seed, which in 
growing adapts itself both to the plates them- 
selves, and to the inequalities in the lining of 
the nut, so that when full grown it is four- 
lobed, and deeply divided all over by irregular 
fissures. 
" The seed, like the ovule, stands erect in 
the cavity of the nut ; but the embryo is in- 
verted, its base or radicle being at the point of 
the seed. The cotyledons are applied face to 
face, and each participates in the convolutions 
of the other, until they meet the elevated point 
of the central plate on which the seed rests ; 
thence they separate in a downward direction, 
* "In technical language, this nut must be described 
as consisting of two opposite connate carpels, whose 
margins at the base are turned inwards towards the 
placenta, whence they are partially produced as far as 
the back of the cavity of the carpel, forming an adhe- 
sion with it, and half dividing the cavity into two 
spurious cells." 
