Elements of Botany; Or, Outlines of the Natural History of Vegetables. Illustrated by Forty Engravings (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1836 edition. Excerpt: ...ovary, so he denominates the seed, the " egg of plants." To these analogical terms there can be no particular objections. A knowledge of the pericarp and seed is of the utmost importance in the study of botany: I mean in the methodical distribution of plants, and in investigating their affinities to each other. In a philosophical and physiological point of view, the dignity of these parts will be immediately seen and acknowledged. We shall afterwards see, that L. almost always attends to these parts of the fructification in drawing the generic character of vegetables'. By other botanists, the fruit has been deemed of still more importance. Thus, Rivinus has founded the orders of his system upon the fruit. The great Tournefort has done the same. Camelli constructed a method upon the valves of the fruit: and although L. has declared, that in determining the genera of plants, the flower ought to be greatly preferred to the fruit, his opinion on this subject has not received the sanction of all the botanists since his time. Thus, Gaertner is of opinion, that forthe purpose I have mentioned. the two parts in question are nearly equally entitled to attention, "for Nature (he observes, ) has made flowers and fruits equal in dignity." This is unquestionably the case. A. I.--Of The Migration'of Seeds.--Nature has employed various modes for effecting the diffusion of the seeds of vegetables over the surface of the earth. The principal of these modes are the following, viz. 1. Rivers, and other running waters. The seeds of many vegetables are carried along by rivers, and torrents, and the ocean, and are frequently conveyed to the distance of many hundred, or thousand, miles from the countries in which they were originally placed. In this manner, many...