FRUIT OF THE FLOWERLESS PLANTS.
1346. The flowerless or asexual plants can have no genuine seed or no embryo. For the genuine seed is the repetition of the blossom under the idea of root. (Ed. 1st, 1810. § 1564.)
1347. That which has been called germinal powder is no seed or germ, but only albumen or perisperm. It has no seed-petiole, has only been exuded out of what has been called the wall of the capsule, and exhibits in its composition no seed-lobes. (Ed. 1st. § 1586.)
1348. What is termed capsule in the Acotyledones is none other than the seed-shell, whereupon it follows of itself, that the so-called seeds can have no umbilical cords or seed-petioles. (Ed. 1st; 1810. § 1573.)
1349. The capsules of ferns are involuted like most dicotyledonous seeds. The ring corresponds to the seed-rib or raphe, the fissure to the seed-aperture or micropyle. The involuted fern-capsule is a repetition of the involuted fern-frond. The little heaps of capsules or sori are consequently not pollen, but a nest of seeds surrounded by an indusium or veil, which, probably, corresponds to the ovary.
1350. The capsule of mosses is an antetype of monocotyledonous seeds; it is a spathe-leaf with the lateral suture; it springs up in a tubular manner similar to grass-leaves, that free themselves from the nodes of the culm.
1351. The hollow columella, which likewise contains germinal powder, is an internal spathe, which corresponds to the germinal leaf of grasses.
1352. The oral teeth are the dissevered parallel strips of vessels in the culm and leaf of the Monocotyledons.
1353. The urn-supporting pedicel is the seed-petiole or umbilical cord.
1354. The calyptra probably corresponds to the arillus and thus to the bud-scales; or possibly to the indusium of the ferns, and thus to the ovary.