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SOME EEMARKABLE DEVIATIONS, &c.

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��The principal part of the following paper was read to the Society in ^larch, L^13. It was then withdrawn with a view of rendering it more perfect by additional facts, which I hoped I might be able to collect.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 sub- ject. As, however, the facts formerly stated appear to me of some importance, and are as yet unpublished, I take the liberty of again submitting them to the Society, along with a few additional instances of anomalies in the structure of seeds and fruits, hardly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 con- tained in the original essay.

It is, I believe, generally admitted by physiological botanists, that the seeds of plants are never produced abso- lutely naked:— in other words, that the integument through some point or process of which impregnation takes place, cannot pro]^crly 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 fouud to be attached.

There are, however, many cases where soon after fecun- pation, and more remarkably still in the ripe fruit, this integument acquires so complete and intimate a cohesion n" 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

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