1542 A TEXTBOOK OF THEORETICAL BOTANY 



a different type, is Fragaria (Strawberry), the fruits of which are minute, 

 hard akenes, set on the surface of the much enlarged and highly coloured 

 receptacle which forms the popular idea of the fruit. 



From the Anacardiaceae comes another receptacular fruit, Anacardium 

 occidentale, where the kidney-shaped true fruit is drupe-like and contains 

 one big seed enclosed in an oily pericarp. It is not this, however, but the 

 receptacle which is most conspicuous, for it swells up to the proportions of 

 a lemon, underneath the drupe which it supports. (See Fig. 1693.) 



Several familiar pseudocarps are made up of an entire inflorescence, 

 in which the individual flowers are united to and by the swollen tissues of 

 the axis. Among these is the Pineapple, which is formed from an inter- 

 calary spike of flowers (Fig. 1403). Although the flowers are sterile in the 



Fig. 1403. — Ananas satnus. Pineapple. 

 Longitudinal section of the fleshy inflor- 

 escence axis, in the surface of which the 

 sterile flowers and their bracts are em- 

 bedded. The axis proliferates above into 

 secondary vegetative growth. 



cultivated form of the plant, the fruit develops by the hypertrophy of the 

 axis, which envelops the remains of the flowers and all but the tips of the 

 floral bracts. The flesh of the fruit is therefore wholly due to vegetative 

 growth. The Mulberry {Morus) on a smaller scale is also an inflorescence 

 fruit, formed of a close aggregate of small drupes united to a swollen axis 

 and to each other by the persistent calyces, which become succulent and 

 provide the flesh of the fruit. 



Lastly there is the Fig [Ficus carica) which belongs to the same family 



