CHAPTER VII 

 THE FRUIT 



Probably primitive groupings of fruits took only the product 

 of the plant in consideration; for, undoubtedly long before the 

 dawn of history men had learned to know, value, and classify 

 varieties, guided solely by their superficial characters. An 

 appeal to other parts of the plant for classification w^as probably 

 not made in early times, and is now seldom employed, on the 

 theory that if a variety is not noteworthy in characters which 

 attract taste and sight, it stands small chance of being cultivated 

 commonly or widely. It is onlj^ at times when fruits cannot be 

 obtained, when differences between the product are slight, and 

 because the cultivator must know the plant as well as its product, 

 that the plant enters into classifications. 



83. Fruit defined. — Any product of sexual fertilization, more 

 commonly the ripened ovary of a seed plant and its contents, is 

 the fruit of a plant in the botanical sense. The pomologist, 

 however, applies the word ''fruit" to several different parts of 

 a plant which are not the ripened ovary and not, therefore, the 

 ''fruit" of the botanist. As examples, the edible part of a 

 strawberry is the greatly enlarged receptacle of the flower, while 

 the true fruits are the seed-like structures with which the berry 

 is beset; in the apple, the edible part is the modified receptacle 

 while the true fruit, the ripened ovary, is the core of the apple ; 

 the receptacle is a part of the blackberry fruit; the bramble- 

 berries and the mulberry consist of several true fruits. 



In popular usage the edible product of a woody or perennial 

 plant, consisting of the seeds and the surrounding tissues, is a 

 fruit. This definition is a loose one and possibly applies only 

 in America, for in European countries melons and tomatoes are 

 generally regarded as fruits, and rhubarb, when eaten as a 

 dessert, passes on bills of fare as a fruit. 



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