XI 
either discharges its perfected ovules through openings made in the 
vessel, or drops to the ground and decays, allowing the seeds to 
germinate. The mode of opening, technically called dehiscence , is 
often an important characteristic; non-opening seed-vessels are 
said to be indehiscent. 
There is a great variety of form and structure in the fruit of 
plants; but we can here notice only some of the more frequent 
kinds. A dry fruit dehiscing by valvular openings or pores is 
termed a capsule, as in the Poppy and Foxglove. A siliqua is a cap¬ 
sule opening by two valves and leaving the seeds attached to a 
membranous frame or replum formed by the placentas in the 
centre, as in the Wall-flower and other Cruciferre; when short and 
thick, it is called by some writers a silicida. A legume or pod is a 
fruit formed of one carpel bearing a row of seeds along the united 
margins of the leaf, and opening by both sutures, as in the Pea and 
Broom; the term pod, however, is often given to the siliqua of 
Cruciferse and to other fruits which resemble the legume externally. 
A follicle is a pod opening only by the ventral suture, or that along 
which the seeds are attached, as in the Larkspur; it is usually pro¬ 
duced in flowers bearing several pistils, two or more follicles con¬ 
stituting the fruit. Among the indehiscent varieties may be men¬ 
tioned the achcenium, a one-seeded carpel with a separable covering, 
generally, like the follicle, found several together, as in the Butter¬ 
cup ; the nut, a hard one-celled fruit, containing a single seed; the 
dnipe, a fleshy fruit enclosing a nut-like seed-vessel, as in the 
Cherry; the berry, in which the seeds are imbedded in a pulpy 
mass, as in the Hawthorn fruit; and the pome or apple, where the 
adherent calyx forms, with the outer covering of the ovary, a succu¬ 
lent body in which are cells containing the seeds. 
The seed consists of the embryo or young plant, surrounded 
usually by a quantity of matter stored up for its nutriment, called 
albumen, and enclosed in a testa or cuticle. The albumen is of 
various consistence,— farinaceous, as in Wheat; fleshy, as in the 
c 2 
