80 



PBACTICAL BOTANY. 



MULTIPLE (collective, CONFLUENt) FRUITS. 



153, Multiple fruits result fi-om the aggregation of a 

 number of flowers (an inflorescence) in one mass. The fruits 

 of Mitchella and of some Honeysuckles result from only 

 two flowers. Their ovaries are united into a double or 

 twin berry. Here, then, w^e have the simplest form of 

 collective fruit. Collective fruits from a large number of 

 flowers are the Mulberry, the Pineapple, and Fig. They 

 are transformations of dense forms of inflorescence, the 

 floral envelopes, coherent with each other, having become 

 completely or in part succulent. In the Mulberry, which 

 at flrst view resembles a blackberry, tlie grains are the 

 ripened ovaries, not of a single flower, but of as many dis- 

 tinct, clustered flowers ; and the pulp of the grains results 

 from the transformation of the floral envelopes, and not 

 of the ovary-walls. This sort of fruit, therefore, is not 

 only confluent, but also anthocarpons. The fruit of 

 the Fig issues from an inflorescence, enclosed in a hollow 

 flower-stalk, w^hich becomes pulpy. A collective fruit is 

 also the strobile, or cone — a scaly, multiple fruit, which re- 



