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We travelled nine miles north-west to lat. 16 degrees 9 minutes 41 seconds, over a country very much like that of the two preceding stages, and past several fine lagoons, richly adorned by the large showy flowers of a white Nymphaea, the seed-vessels of which some families of natives were busily gathering: after having blossomed on the surface of the water, the seed-vessel grows larger and heavier, and sinks slowly to the bottom, where it rots until its seeds become free, and are either eaten by fishes and waterfowl, or form new plants.
In its last summer but one he wrote: "This morning I plucked a globe of the dandelion the seed-vessel and was struck as never before with the silent, gentle manner in which nature sows her seed.... I saw, too, how nature sows her seed broadcast.... So we must send truth abroad, not forcing it on here and there a mind, and watching its progress anxiously, but trusting that it will light on a kindly soil, and yield its fruit.
Donald soon followed, when, telling the men to hold the poor ox's mouth, he took out of it a curious woody-looking substance, covered with sharp thorns. "The poor creature has got this seed-vessel of the grapple plant into his mouth," he said, exhibiting it. "I suspect that any of you who had taken the same between your jaws would have roared too, if not so loudly."
In most plants the corolla or calyx is the part which attains the highest color, and is the most attractive; in many it is the seed-vessel or fruit; in others, as the Red Maple, the leaves; and in others still it is the very culm itself which is the principal flower or blooming part. Some which stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their purple stems now and early in September.
The Lotus is the chief ornament of the subterranean Eden, Patala, and the holy mountain Meru is thought to be shaped like its seed-vessel, larger at summit than at base. When the heavenly Urvasi fled from her earthly spouse, Purúvavas, he found her sporting with four nymphs of heaven, in a lake beautified with the Lotus.
The fruit of the fig is not a seed-vessel, but a receptacle inclosing the flower within it. The figs of this country are all female, and their seeds not prolific; and therefore they can only be propagated by layers and suckers.
But close examination of the flower will show that the little seed-vessel in the center of the flower is shaped like a pine cone, in which are tiny cells too small to let out the seeds as occurs in most plant and seed life; these tiny seeds having no outlet, shoot when ripe into new plants, the bulb of the plant being the matrix or womb of the new life.
They are purple when ripe. Black pepper is made by grinding the dried berry of a climbing vine, native to the East Indies. White pepper is obtained from the same berries, freed from their husk or rind. Red or cayenne pepper is obtained by grinding the scarlet pod or seed-vessel of a tropical plant that is now cultivated in all parts of the world.
Other seeds again disperse themselves by means of an elastic seed-vessel, as Oats, Geranium, and Impatiens; and the seeds of aquatic plants, and of those which grow on the banks of rivers, are carried many miles by the currents, into which they fall. See Impatiens. Zostera. Cassia. Sun-dew. Five males, five females.
Families of Plants, p. 242 These singular flowers appear in the autumn without any leaves, whence in some countries they are called Naked Ladies: in the March following the green leaves spring up, and in April the seed-vessel rises from the ground; the seeds ripen in May, contrary to the usual habits of vegetables, which slower in the spring, and ripen their seeds in the autumn. Miller's Dict.
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