“The same structure, with two cotyledons of great size and easy to observe, may be found in the broad bean, pea, kidney bean, and acorn, and in the stones of the peach, apricot, and plum. It would also be found in the pips of pears and apples as well as in the seeds of most of our cultivated plants, but more difficult to distinguish in proportion to the smallness of the seed. In every instance the seed would be found to have two cotyledons as food-storehouses, and also a gemmule and a radicle united by the tigella. Other plants, on the contrary, like maize, wheat, and the other cereals, as also the lily, tulip, and iris, have but one cotyledon, one nursing-leaf for the new vegetable organism. “It is not always easy, especially when the seed is very small, to ascertain whether it has two cotyledons or only one; but as soon as germination has begun, this difficulty disappears. Then the seed with two cotyledons is seen to push up two leaves, the very first to appear, situated opposite each other, and very often differing in shape from those that come later. In the radish, for example, they are heart-shaped; in the carrot, long and narrow like little tongues. These two leaves that precede the others are known as seminal leaves. They come from the two cotyledons, which generally open in the air and grow green while nourishing the young plant with a part of their substance; but sometimes, as in the acorn, they remain hidden underground. On the other hand, seeds having but one cotyledon come up with only one seminal leaf, generally narrow and long. This is what we observe if we watch the germination of a grain of wheat. “A simpler and quicker method may be used for ascertaining how many cotyledons a seed has. Hold a leaf up to the light and you will see its texture traversed by a multitude of little cords which serve it as a kind of framework. These cords are called veins or nerves. Now then, if you compare the leaf of a pear-tree with a blade of wheat, or reed, you will see that in the former the veins are more and more subdivided and ramified, joining one another and thus forming a network with irregular meshes, while in the latter the veins do not branch, but run in parallel lines without forming meshes. We should find the same difference of framework between the leaves of the elm, poplar, and plane-tree, on the one hand, and those of the iris, narcissus, and tulip, on the other. This difference being established, I will add that with few exceptions, of no interest to us here, every plant with netted-veined leaves has two cotyledons in its seed, and that every plant with parallel-veined leaves has but one. Consequently it is only necessary to glance at the foliage in order to know whether the seed has two cotyledons or only one. I will say further that pines, firs, and the other resinous trees have as many as ten cotyledons, which show themselves as a delicate tuft of leaves when the little plant comes out of the ground.”