Now here we have a beautiful link of connexion with the past. The plant before us does not ripen its seeds, and then drop them to care for themselves, as most plants do. "The young fruit, instead of being placed at the bottom of the calyx, as in other kinds of pulse, is found at the bottom and in the inside of a long slender tube, which looks like a flower-stalk. When the flower has withered, and the young fruit is fertilized, nothing but the bottom of the tube with its contents remains. At this period a small point projects from the summit of the young fruit, and gradually elongates, curving downwards towards the earth. At the same time the stalk of the fruit lengthens, until the small point strikes the earth, into which the now half-grown fruit is speedily forced, and where it finally ripens in what would seem a most unnatural position."[92] The young plant before us has been this moment created, and created in this incipient stage of growth: and yet there is, even here, an indubitable evidence, so far as physical phenomena can afford it, of a past history. It would be utterly impossible to select any stage in the life of the Earth-pea, which did not connect itself, visibly and palpably, with a previous stage. Let us return to the shore-loving Mangrove. You object to my assumption that it was created as a tree, with a well-branched stem elevated upon a series of arching roots; and to my deduction of pre-lapsed years for the formation of those roots. Very well. I give it up. You allow that the primitive Mangrove was created in some stage, but you contend for the germ-stage, the simplest condition of the plant, whatever that might be. Now, where shall we find it? In the first pair of developed leaves? They certainly point back to the cotyledons. To the cotyledons, then, let us look. Lo! the young plant is germinating before its connexion with the parent is severed. It is the singular habit of this tree, that its seeds are already in a growing condition, while they hang from the twig. Each seed is a long club-shaped body, with a bulbous base and a slender point, more or less produced. While it yet hangs from the branch, the radicle and crown of the root begin to grow, and gradually lengthen, until the tip reaches the soil, which it penetrates and thus roots itself; while those which depend from the higher branches, after growing for a while, drop, and, sticking in the mud, throw out roots from one end, and leaves from the other. [Illustration: SEED OF MANGROVE.]