ruity
substance between the husk and seed. Normally, however, the husk, like the
seed, consists always of three parts; it has an outer skin, a central
substance of peculiar nature, and an inner skin, which holds the seed. The
main difficulty, in describing or thinking of the completely ripened
product of any plant, is to discern clearly which is the inner skin of the
husk, and which the outer skin of the seed. The peach is in this respect
the best general type,--the woolly skin being the outer one of the husk;
the part we eat, the central substance of the husk; and the hard shell of
the stone, the inner skin of the husk. The bitter kernel within is the
seed.

7. In this case, and in the plum and cherry, the two parts under present
examination--husk and seed--separate naturally; the fruity part, which is
the body of the husk, adhering firmly to the shell, which is its inner
{223} coat. But in the walnut and almond, the two outer parts of the husk
separate from the interior one, which becomes an apparently independent
'shell.' So that when first I approached this subject I divided the general
structure of a treasury into _three_ parts--husk, shell, and kernel; and
this division, when we once have mastered the main one, will be often
useful. But at first let the student keep steadily to his conception of the
two constant parts, husk and seed, reserving the idea of shells and kernels
for one group of plants only.

8. It will not be always without difficulty that he maintains the
distinction, when the tree pretends to have changed it. Thus, in the
chestnut, the inner coat of the husk becomes brown, adheres to the seed,
and seems part of it; and we naturally call only the thick, green, prickly
coat, the husk. But this is only one of the deceiving tricks of Nature, to
compel our attention more closely. The real place of separation, to _her_
mind, is between the mahogany-coloured shell and the nut itself, and that
more or less silky and flossy coating within the brown shell is the true
lining of the entire 'husk.' The paler brown skin, following the rugosities
of the nut, is the true sack or skin of the seed. Similarly in the walnut
and almond.

9. But, in the apple, two new tricks are played us. First, in the brown
skin of the ripe pip, we might imagine we saw the part correspondent to the
mahogany skin of the chestnut, and therefore the inner coat of the {224}
husk. But it is not so. The brown skin of the pips belongs to th