616 FIBRO-VASCULAR SYSTEM OF THE APPLE, 



2), there are twelve bundles instead of ten ; and when there 

 are four carpels, there are only eight strands (Fig. 3). In a 

 longitudinal, median section of the apple each of these ten 

 vascular bundles is seen to give rise to branches, which, in 

 turn, branch again and so on, mostly towards the outside, 

 although there are several branches on the inside (Fig. 7). 

 From each of these ten strands, just as they are leaving the 

 stalk, branches are given off to the outer and inner face of 

 the seed-cavity, so that the seeds are well supplied. The 

 main strands, however, are associated with the "flesh," and 

 the diverging branches towards the outside do not divide 

 much until they approach the skin, where they form a per- 

 fect network (Fig. 19). This vascular net envelops the flesh 

 about one-quarter of an inch from the surface, and this 

 wonderful and hitherto unsuspected structure not only unites 

 the entire system of vessels, but it gives rise to the innumer- 

 able plume-like branches which reach even to the skin (Figs. 

 8 and 20). These arise from the boundaries of each mesh of 

 the net, and they divide and subdivide in such a luxuriant 

 manner that the ultimate branchlets interlace and inter- 

 twine, so as to form a seemingly continuous layer of coTi- 

 ducting tissue beneath the skin. They penetrate the pai'en- 

 chyma cells immediately beneath the epidermis (Fig. 15), 

 which are particularly rich in chlorophyll, and take an active 

 part in the nutrition of the growing and swelling fruit. 

 Brooks,* in his article on "The Fruit-spot of Apples," ob- 

 serves that they fade away into the surrounding tissue — "In 

 the small veinlets, the vascular elements become fewer and 

 fewer, finally giving place to long narrow cells that seem to 

 be transitional between the vascular tissue and that of the 

 apple-pulp." In a longitudinal section, the main strands are 

 seen to come together again just at the "eye," where they 

 piss nut into the calyx, corolla, and stamens, so that the entire 



• Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. Vol. xxxv., p. 423, 1908. 



