Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/334

 304 Arctium Lappa, ''Engl. Bot. t. 1228; sometimes hooks encompass the fruit itself, as in Xanthium, and some species of Galium, particularly G. Aparine, t.'' 816. Plants thus furnished are observed by Linnæus to thrive best in a rank manured soil, with which, by being conveyed to the dens of wild animals, they are most likely to meet. The Awns of grasses answer the same end. Pulpy fruits serve quadrupeds and birds as food, while their seeds, often small, hard and indigestible, pass uninjured through the intestines, and are deposited far from their original place of growth, in a condition peculiarly fit for vegetation. Even such seeds as are themselves eaten, like the various sorts of nuts, are hoarded up in the ground and occasionally forgotten, or carried to a distance, and in part only devoured. Even the ocean itself serves to waft the larger kinds from their native soil to far-distant shores.

7. . The Receptacle is the common base or point of connexion of the other parts of fructification. It is not