. Botany for young people and common schools. Botany. SEEDS. 88 for our purpose. As the pupil advances farther in his botanical studies, he will learn much more about them, as well as about fruits and flowers, in the Lessons in Botany, and other works. 254. A seed consists of its Coats and its Kernel Besides the true seed-coats, which are those of the ovule, an outer loose covering, generally an imperfect one, is occasionally superadded while the seed is growing. This is called an Aril. Mace is the aril of the nutmeg. The scarlet pulpy covering of the seeds of the Strawberry-tree and the Staff
. Botany for young people and common schools. Botany. SEEDS. 88 for our purpose. As the pupil advances farther in his botanical studies, he will learn much more about them, as well as about fruits and flowers, in the Lessons in Botany, and other works. 254. A seed consists of its Coats and its Kernel Besides the true seed-coats, which are those of the ovule, an outer loose covering, generally an imperfect one, is occasionally superadded while the seed is growing. This is called an Aril. Mace is the aril of the nutmeg. The scarlet pulpy covering of the seeds of the Strawberry-tree and the Staff-tree or Waxwork is also an aril. 255. The Seed-Coats are commonly two, an outer and an inner; the latter gen- erally thin and delicate. The outer coat is sometimes close and even, and fitted to the kernel, as in Morning-Glory (Fig. 227) ; some- times it is furnished with a tuft of long hairs, as in Milkweed (Fig. 229), or else is covered with long woolly hairs, as in the Cotton-plant, where they form that most useful material, Cotton-wool. In some cases the outer coat is extended into a thin border or wing, as in the Trumpet-Creeper (Fig. 228). Catalpa-seeds have a fringe-like wing or tuft at each end. The seeds of Pines are winged at one end (Fig. 226). All these tufts and wings are contrivances for rendering such seeds buoyant, so that, when shed, they may be dispersed by the wind. Thistle-down, and the like, is a similar con- trivance on the fruit or akene. 256. The seed is often supported by a stalk of its own, the Seed-stalk. Where the seed separates, it leaves a mark, called the Scar or Hilum. This is conspicu- ous in a bean and a pea, and is remarkably large in a horsechestnut. 257. Tile Kernel is the whole body of the seed within the coats. It consists of the Embryo, and of the Albumen, when there is any. 258. The Albumen is a stock of prepared food, for the embryo to live upon at the outset, in those cases where it has not a similar supply laid up in its cotyledons (3
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1868
