18 
The Pericarp serves also a grander design. It contains the reservoir of 
nutriment for the embryo-seeds. 
PERICARPS are distinguished as follows. 
I. A Cap Mile (Capsula), a seed-vessel properly speaking, usually formed 
of several external pieces, called valves (valvule), which are joined together 
by their sutures, or borders, but cleave, or separate, at the time of maturity, 
when the capsule becomes dry and membranaceous, for the purpose of liber¬ 
ating the seeds it contains. 
Upon its opening you discover in the centre the Column (Columna), 
whence arise the Partitions (D issepimenta), forming the Cells (Locula- 
menta), which contain the seeds.* 
The capsule usually opens at top; and we may here remark a wise con¬ 
trivance in Nature. However inclined the flower, as in the crown imperial, 
superb lily, and poppy, the seed-vessels, as they advance towards maturity, 
become rigidly erect. 
In the poppy, the capsule is a kind of vase, with a cover like a parapluie, 
reflected over the unripe seeds, which rises as they become mature, discover¬ 
ing the apertures of the capsule for the escape of the seeds; there being one 
opening to each cell. 
It sometimes opens transversely, as in anagallis; at the bottom, as in 
triglochin; but usually longitudinally, as in the horse-chesnut. 
In some plants the capsule is found to be very pulpy, although these, 
when ripe, preserve their distinctive character, and are sometimes of so elastic 
a nature, that the seeds are darted from them with great force and velocity. 
If you press betwixt your fingers and thumb the capsule of the balsam, 
knowledge of the meaning of any one precise term. But such a man could not become a writer, nor 
could he derive advantage from the labours of others. T.he question then is, whether three hundred 
years of study and observation should be lost to Botany, whether three hundred volumes of figures 
and descriptions should be thrown into the fire, whether the knowledge acquired by all the learned, 
who have conseciated their purse, their life, their time, to distant, expensive, painful, and dangerous 
expeditions, should be useless to their successors, and whether every one setting out from nothing, 
could arrive by himself at the same knowledge, that a long series of inquiry and study has spread over 
the mass of mankind? If not, and if the most lovely part of natural history merit the attention of the 
curious, let them tell me how we shall manage to make use of the knowledge heretofore acquired, if 
we do not begin by learning the language of the writers, and knowing to what objects the names em¬ 
ployed by them belong. To admit therefore the study of botany, and to reject that of the nomen¬ 
clature, is a most absurd contradiction. Rousseau. 
* Vide Plate III. The different kinds of Seed-vessels, and their Anatomy. 
