iSSi.] BOTANY FOR GARDENERS. 321 



P. decussata blooms from April to July. It is a very free-flower- 

 ing species. The flowers are pink in colour, and the plant is a robust 

 grower. 



P. Neippergeana. This is a compact - growing species, with white 

 flowers, and blooms in April and May. 



P. spectabilis rosea. This is a very ornamental kind, the flowers 

 being large and of a rose colour. It is a free grower, and plants of it 

 soon attain to handsome specimens. 



P. Hendersonii. The flowers of this species resemble those of the 

 former in colour, but they are not quite so large. It is a very desirable 

 kind, however, and if kept free of red-spider, is a handsome and striking 

 plant when in bloom. J. Hammond. 



BOTAT^Y FOR GARDENERS. 



NO. VIII. — FEUIT. 



The fruit is, in the strictest sense of the word, the matured pistil ; 

 but Lindley says the term is also applied to the pistil and floral 

 envelopes taken together, whenever they are all united in one uniform 

 mass. The different forms and general characters of the various fruits 

 are very interesting, and are very apt to become stumbling-blocks to 

 many a beginner, as some are so much like seeds, and in some cases 

 seeds are so much like fruits, that at first it is diflicult to discern one 

 from another, or, as a Cockney would express it, " t'other from which." 



" As the fruit is the maturation of the pistil, it ought to indicate 

 upon its surface some traces of a style ; and this is true in all cases, 

 ■except Cycads and Conifers " (which, as I said on page 226, have their 

 ovules exposed), " which have no ovary. Hence it will be at once seen 

 in the case of grains of corn, and many other bodies that resemble 

 seeds, traces of the style can be seen, so that they are not seeds, but 

 minute fruits." Seeds are almost invariably contained in a seed- 

 vessel called the pericarjj, which may consist of the ripened ovary 

 only, or, in the case of the ovary being inferior, of the calyx -tube 

 -combined with the ovary. When the pericarp opens, it is said to 

 deldsce; when it neither opens nor splits when ripe, the fruit is termed 

 indeJiiscent. 



All fruits are simple or multiple — a single fruit results from a single 

 flower, or a multiple of fruits from a multiple of flowers. The numer- 

 ous forms of fruit may be classed among the following, viz. : — 



Simple Fruits. — (1) Achene — apocarpous, dry, indehiscent, usually 

 one-seeded, and does not contract any degree of adhesion with the 

 integument of the seed. Ex. Buttercup, Rose, Strawberry. (2) Nut 

 — a dry, bony, indehiscent, one -celled fruit. Ex. Hazel, Acorn. 

 (3) Drupe — usually apocarpous, succulent, indehiscent, and one- 

 seeded, with _the inner layer^ of the pericarp stony. Ex, Cherry, 



