in anatomy, are certain glandular bodies, adhering to the chorion of fowls animals.

in botany, the perishable, porous side-lobes of the seed, which involve, and for some time furnish nourishment to, the embryo plant. The lobes in question, which are generally two in number, are very conspicuous in the bean and most of the leguminous tribes, on stripping off the husk or outer cover of the seed; particularly if they have previously been laid in earth or water. Their substance is mealy, mucilaginous, and easily ferments. They result from the expansion of an infinite number of branching vessels. The lobes are externally convex, internally flat, unless where they are united and infold the principle of life, corculum, which communicates with them by means of two large trunks of vessels that supply it with nourishment, and correspond to the navel-string in animals; as the lobes themselves seem to answer the purpose of the placenta in women, and cotyledons in brutes, &c.

We said, in the definition, that the lobes are the perishable parts of the seed. To explain this we must previously previously observe the changes which are effected on the embryo plant in the first stages of vegetation. After lying some time in water or earth, the lobes of the seed, penetrated by the watery particles, which are charged with nutritive juices, put in motion by the heart, swell and thicken; the air, contained within their substance, dilating, bursts open the outer cover or husk which unites them, and discovers the radicle and embryo-plant. In this first stage the seed is said properly to sprout or germinate. Soon after, the lobes expanding, rise out of the earth in the form of leaves; very different, however, from those which the plant is afterwards to produce. In this stage the seed is properly said to rise. These leaves, called for distinction's sake seminal or seed leaves, (that is, the first leaves produced by the seeds), are commonly two in number: some seeds, however, have only one seminal leaf; in which case the plants, by botanists, are called monocotyledonous, a term of the same import; as those which rise with two seminal leaves are styled dicotyledonous. Cesalpinus and Jungius termed both these kinds of seeds unicostular and bicostular; that is, having one or two seed-covers. The former was the first who discovered the number of lobes in the embryo of seeds.—To proceed with our infant plant. Under this new form of leaves, the lobes elaborate and rectify the sap, which is destined to nourish the tender vegetable. The young root too, which naturally tends downwards, has by this time made some efforts to penetrate into the bottom of the earth, where meeting with strong exhilarating juices, it transmits them to the lobes, through which they pass, highly refined, to the future plant. The stem begins to appear; but, though enlarged in volume, its parts are not developed or unfolded, but continue as they were in the seed. The lobes still united to the plant by the two trunks of the vessels, accompany it for some time after its eruption from the earth, till, having acquired sufficient strength and growth, the seminal leaves become useless, wrinkle, wither, and die away. See Germination.

Of plants which have only one seminal leaf, we must carefully distinguish those in which the lobe forms a sort of sheath surrounding the whole body of the plant, as in the palms, grasses, and liliaceous vegetables; from those in which the lobe is only extended in length, as in dodder. Pine, and fir-trees, says Linnæus, have ten; cypresses, five; flax, four lobes: in fact, however, these plants have only two lobes, each of which is differently divided, almost to the base; the lobes only being perfectly distinct. The lobes being in the vegetable economy what the placenta is in the animal, their disposition at the time when the seed begins to grow, is termed very properly, by Linnæus, Placentation.

In the mushrooms, ferns, and other imperfect plants, the seminal leaves are not sufficiently ascertained. The seeds of the mosses want only the proper coverings and lobes.