Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/304

 274 simple, scarcely more than a point, or capitate, forming a little round head, or variously lobed. Sometimes hollow, and gaping more especially when the flower is in its highest perfection; very generally downy, and always more or less moist with a peculiar viscid fluid, which in some plants is so copious as to form a large drop, though never big enough to fall to the ground. The moisture is designed for the reception of the pollen, which explodes on meeting with it; and hence the seeds are rendered capable of ripening, which, though in many plants fully formed, they would not otherwise be.

The Germen appears under a variety of shapes and sizes. It is of great moment for botanical distinctions to observe whether it be superior, that is, above the bases of the calyx and corolla, as in the Strawberry and Raspberry, or inferior, below them, as in the Apple and pear. Very rarely indeed the Germen is supposed by be betwixt the calyx and corolla, of which Sanguisorba, ''Engl. Bot. t.'' 1312, is reckoned by Linnæus an example; but