Page:Miscellaneousbot01brow.djvu/377

 Rh

SOME REMARKABLE DEVIATIONS, &c.

The principal part of the following paper was read to the Society in March, 1813. It was then withdrawn with a view of rendering it more perfect by additional facts, which I hoped I might be able to collect. Since that time I have not had it in my powder to pay much attention to the subject. As, however, the facts formerly stated appear to me of some importance, and are as yet unpublished, I take the liberty of again submitting them to the Society, along with a few additional instances of anomalies in the structure of seeds and fruits, hardly less remarkable than those contained in the original essay.

It is, I believe, generally admitted by physiological botanists, that the seeds of plants are never produced absolutely naked:— in other words, that the integument through some point or process of which impregnation takes place, cannot properly be considered as part of the seed itself.

That such a covering, distinct from the seed, really exists, may in most, perhaps in all, cases be satisfactorily shown by a careful examination of the unimpregnated ovarium, to a part only of whose cavity the ovulum will be found to be attached.

There are, however, many cases where soon after fecunpation, and more remarkably still in the ripe fruit, this integument acquires so complete and intimate a cohesion [144 with the proper coat of the seed as to be no longer either separable or distinguishable from it.

But systematic botanists have generally agreed to term a