Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern.

  • John Scoffern
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    substitutes ; but the general coniplesiity vof .crj^ptogamic plants, the microscopic nature of these jargans, and. the comparatively limited ac- quaintance with this diviflicm 'Orf *&e Tegetahle world, .renders it unde- sirable to state much concerning ithom in a iittle book like ;thia, in which so many tribes of flowering plante ■ claim our notice. § 12. ON XHi: BEPRODUCTIVB QRGHMfS OP PLANTS : THE FLOWPS AND ITS APPENDA.&ES. Having written what is necessary conoerning the nutritive parts of plants, we shall now describe their reproductive members, the flower and its appendages. It would be folly indeed to describe formally what is meant by a flower, but the purposes to which a flower is designed in the economy of vegetable nature will require our attentive consideration. Without flowers there could be no fruit.’; without fruit there can be no seed ; and without the latter the greater number of vegetables could not be multiplied. The reason, then, for denominating flowers the reproduc- tive organs of plants will be manifest. To state this fact, that flowers are the reproductive portions of a plant, is very easy. To demonstrate, however, the elaborate means by which the functions of reproduction are discharged is very diflicult. Indeed, the ]laws affecting the multiplica- tion of animals and vegetables are so similar in many respects, that many of the terms employed in this departmerit of Botany are borrowed from the sister studies of animal anatomy and physiology ; and without some preliminary knowledge of these sciences it would be next to impossible to make the reader comprehend the intricacies of vegetable reproductions. We therefore shall not attempt to deal with these intricacies, but shall content ourselves by saying that all plants most probably, certainly all evidently-flowering or phaenogamous plants, possess sexes, and these sexes are usually in the same plant, in the same flower of the plant. Occasionally, however, the two sexes are on different flowers, and some- times on different plants. We may, therefore, popularly say, that the greater number of flowers contain both gentlemen and ladies, but occa- sionally, on some plants, the gentlemen and ladies have flowers, each sex to itself; and occasionally, again, the gentlemen monopolise all the flowers on one plant, and the ladies all the flowers on the other. When the two sexes reside in two sets of flowers on one plant, then such a plant is said to be moncEcious^ from two Greek words signifying “ one house.” The plant, we suppose, being regarded as a house, and the flowers as cham- bers in the same. When, however, the males all reside in the flowers of one plant, and the females in all the flowers of another, then such plants are said to be dicecious, or “ two housed,” the reason of which will be obvious.
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