y, though evanescent, some,--in the
passing of a breeze--or the dying of a day;--and patient some, of storm and
time, serene in fruitful sanctity, through all the uncounted ages which Man
has polluted with his tears.

* * * * *

{219}

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SEED AND HUSK.

1. Not the least sorrowful, nor least absurd of the confusions brought on
us by unscholarly botanists, blundering into foreign languages, when they
do not know how to use their own, is that which has followed on their
practice of calling the seed-vessels of flowers 'egg-vessels,'[65] in
Latin; thus involving total loss of the power of the good old English word
'husk,' and the good old French one, 'cosse.' For all the treasuries of
plants (see Chapter IV., Sec. 17) may be best conceived, and described,
generally, as consisting of 'seed' and 'husk,'--for the most part two or
more seeds, in a husk composed of two or more parts, as pease in their
shell, pips in an orange, or kernels in a walnut; but whatever their
number, or the method of their enclosure, let the student keep clear in his
mind, for the base of all study of fructification, the broad distinction
between the seed, as one thing, and the husk as another: the seed,
essential to the continuance of the plant's race; and the husk, {220}
adapted, primarily, to its guard and dissemination; but secondarily, to
quite other and far more important functions.

2. For on this distinction follows another practical one of great
importance. A seed may serve, and many do mightily serve, for the food of
man, when boiled, crushed, or otherwise industriously prepared by man
himself, for his mere _sustenance_. But the _husk_ of the seed is prepared
in many cases for the delight of his eyes, and the pleasure of his palate,
by Nature herself, and is then called a 'fruit.'

3. The varieties of structure both in seed and husk, and yet more, the
manner in which the one is contained, and distributed by, the other, are
infinite; and in some cases the husk is apparently wanting, or takes some
unrecognizable form. But in far the plurality of instances the two parts of
the plant's treasury are easily distinguishable, and must be separately
studied, whatever their apparent closeness of relation, or, (as in all
natural things,) the equivocation sometimes taking place between the one
and the other. To me, the especially curious point in this matter is that,
while I find the most elaborate a