CHAPTER XX. 
The Fruit.! 
218. What Constitutes a Fruit. —I1t is not easy to make 
a short and simple definition of what botanists mean by the 
term fruit. It has very little to do with the popular use of 
the word. Briefly stated, the definition may be given as 
follows: The fruit consists of the matured ovary, together 
with any intimately connected parts. Botanically speaking, 
the bur of beggar’s ticks, Fig. 179, the three-cornered grain of 
buckwheat, or such true grains as wheat and oats are as much 
fruits as is an apple or a peach. 
The style or stigma sometimes remains 
as an important part of the fruit in the 
shape of a hook, as in the common hooked 
crowfoot; or in the shape of a plumed 
appendage, as in the virgin’s bower, often 
called wild hops. The calyx may develop 
hooks, as in the agrimony or plumes, as in ‘ 
. : Fig. 169. — Fruit of 
the thistle, the dandelion, lettuce, and many Wand Avance 
other familiar plants. In the apple, pear, I, akene cut verti- 
and very many berries, the calyx becomes ina, Putte 
enlarged and pulpy, often constituting the 
main bulk of the mature fruit. The receptacle not infre- 
quently, as in the apple, forms a more or less important part 
of the fruit. 
219. The Akene.— The one-celled and one-seeded pistils 
of the buttercup, strawberry, and many other flowers ripen 
into a little fruit called an akene, Fig. 169. Such fruits, 
from their small size, their dry consistency, and the fact that 
1See Gray’s Structural Botany, Chapter VII, also Kerner and Oliver, vol. I, pp. 
427-438. 
