lOO FRUIT. [CHAV. 



Ranunculus, tliey do not split open {dehisce) when ripe to let 

 the seed escap, but simply fall to the ground, where the 

 pericarp rots away, and the seed begins to germinate. 



Try now a Loquat, Jambolan, or Guava. Examine first 

 the top of the peduncle, underneath the fruit. There is no 

 scar to be found as in the Mango, but at the top of the fruit 

 you find the distinct remains of the limb of the calyx, and 

 sometimes even a few withered stamens. You thus know 

 the fruit to be inferior. In each of these fruits the calyx- 

 tube is adnate to the ovary, so that ovary and caljrx-tube 

 together constitute the pericarp. 



Next try an Orange. At the bottom of the fruit you find 

 either the calyx still remaining, or its scar. The fruit is a 

 true berry, and the same name you may apply to any syn- 

 carpous fruit that is succulent, and that does not open 

 (succulent fruits rarely do) to allow the seeds to fall 

 out, such as the Grape and Cape Gooseberry {Physalis 

 Peruviana^. On the top of the fruit is a little round 

 scar, left by the style, which soon withers after flowering, 

 and usually breaks off. The Orange, therefore, is clearly a 

 superior fruit, developed solely from the ovary of the flower. 

 Cut it across, and you find it divided into a variable number 

 of cells by membranous dissepiments, each cell answering 

 to a carpel. In the pulp which fills the cells, and which is 

 developed from the inside of the outer wall of the ovary, the 

 seeds are embedded. 



Try a Cocoa-nut. From the extraordinarj' enlargement 

 and change in texture undergone during maturation of the 

 fruit, probably all external indication of the position of the 

 perianth is obliterated. In such cases it can only be deter- 

 mined by watching the development of the fruit whether 

 to call it superior or inferior. In Cocoa-nut it is superior, 

 resulting from the ovary alone, two of the three cells of which 



