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The second tegument of the almonds is membranaceous, and of a brown-yellow. Their taste is extremely agreeable when they are fresh; but the oil, with which they abound, and which is so useful in the arts, becomes easily rancid. Although at the Upper Orinoco we often ate considerable quantities of these almonds for want of other food, we never felt any bad effects from so doing.
But it is the seeds which are curious, and which give to the tree the odd name of "volador," or "flier." These seeds have each a pair of membranaceous and striated wings, which, when the seeds fall, are turned to meet the air at an angle of 45°; and thus a rotatory motion is produced, and the falling seeds turn round and round like little fly-wheels.
In the ravine of the hot waters of Mariara, amidst little funnels, the temperature of which rises from 56 to 59 degrees, two species of aquatic plants vegetate; the one is membranaceous, and contains bubbles of air; the other has parallel fibres. The first much resembles the Ulva labyrinthiformis of Vandelli, which the thermal waters of Europe furnish.
A very curious instance of reduced bracts, developing to unusual size, is afforded by a variety of corn, which is called Zea Mays cryptosperma, or Zea Mays tunicata. In ordinary corn the kernels are surrounded by small and thin, inconspicuous and membranaceous scales. Invisible on the integrate spikes, when ripe, they are easily detected by pulling the kernels out.
The first thing that arrests our attention in these creatures is the extreme delicacy and tenuity of their substance. The jelly-fish is chiefly made up of fluid. A quantity of water and a thin membranaceous film, these are its chief component parts.
Crimsoning capsules give the burning bush its name; this may well have been the bush at which Moses was directed to take off his sandals because he was treading on holy ground. Large, triangular membranaceous pods hang thickly from the white-lined branches of the bladdernut. Cup-like leaves of the honeysuckle hold bunches of scarlet berries.
But it is the seeds which are curious, and which give to the tree the odd name of "volador," or "flier." These seeds have each a pair of membranaceous and striated wings, which, when the seeds fall, are turned to meet the air at an angle of 45 degrees; and thus a rotatory motion is produced, and the falling seeds turn round and round like little fly-wheels.
Professor Heeger discovered one plant with deviating fruits, in a group of common shepherd's purses in the market-place near Landau in Germany, in the fall of 1897. They were nearly spherical, instead of flat and purse-shaped. Their valves were thick and fleshy, while those of the ordinary form are membranaceous and dry.
On shaking the branches of the volador, we saw the air filled with its fruits, the simultaneous fall of which presents the most singular spectacle. The two membranaceous and striated wings are turned so as to meet the air, in falling, at an angle of 45 degrees. Fortunately the fruits we gathered were at their maturity.
The pretty clusters of the wild yam, seen climbing over the hazelbrush in the rich winter woods, have two ways of navigating in the wind; either the three-sided, papery capsule floats as a whole, or it splits through the winged angles and then the flat seeds with their membranaceous wings have a chance to flutter a foot or two away where haply they may find a square inch of unoccupied soil.
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