Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/308

 278 before they met with sufficient moisture to vegetate.

1. Capsula, a Capsule, is a dry seed-vessel of a woody, coriaceous or membranous texture, generally splitting into several valves; more rarely discharging its contents by orifices or pores, as in Campanula and Papaver; or falling off entire with the seed. Internally it consists either of one cell or several; in the latter case the parts which separate the cells are called dissepimenta, partitions. The central column to which the seeds are usually attached is named columella. See Datura Stramonium, ''Engl. Bot. t.'' 1288.

Gærtner, a writer of primary authority on fruits and seeds, reckons several peculiar kinds of Capsules, besides what are generally understood as such; these are

Utriculus, a Little Bladder, which varies in thickness, never opens by any valves, and falls off with the seed. I believe it never contains more than one seed, of which it is most commodiously, in botanical language, called an external coat,