Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/346

 316 now remains to prove that the essential organs of the flower are indispensably requisite for the perfecting of the seed.

Every ane must have observed that the flower of a plant always precedes its fruit. To this the Meadow Saffron, Engl. Bot. t. 133, seems an objection, the fruit and leaves being perfected in the spring, the blossoms not appearing till autumn; but a due examination will readily ascertain that the seed-bud formed in autumn is the very same which comes to maturity in the following spring. A Pine-apple was once very unexpectedly cited to me as an instance of fruit being formed before the flower, because the green fruit in that instance, as in many others, is almost fully grown before the flowers expand. The seeds however, the essence of the fruit, are only in embryo at this period, just as in the germen of an Apple blossom.

It was very soon ascertained that flowers are invariably furnished with Stamens and Pistils, either in the same individual, or two of the same species, however defective they may be in other parts; of which Hippuris, ''Engl. Bot. t.'' 763, the most simple of