PISTIL. 465 



take place, owing to the development of cellular tissue, 

 or of woody matter, according as the fruit is succulent 

 or woody. It sometimes happens that, owing to some 

 disturbing causes, the changes that usually occur fail 

 to do so; thus, the stone of plums is occasionally 

 deficient, as in what are termed bladder-plums (fig. 

 218) ; some of these, consisting merely of a thin bladder, 

 are curiously like the pods of Colutea} 



MM. Fournier and Bonnet" describe a fruit of a 

 Biibus, with perfectly dry fruits, like those of a Geum, 

 and this form was considered by Steudel to form a 

 distinct species. It is, however, merely a variety in 

 which the fruits have not become succulent.' 



Schlechtendal describes* the ordinarily baccate fruit 



' See De Candolle, ' Mem. Legum.,' tab. 3, f. 1 ; Wyville Thomson, 

 ' Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb.,' 1851, July lOtli ; Berkeley, ' Gardeners' Chro- 

 nicle,' June 22nd, 1867, p. 654. A similar case is described by Dr. Robb, 

 in Sir W. Hooker's ' Journal of Botany,' 1841, vol. iii, p. 99, with illustrative 

 figures. The specimens there described were produced at New Bruns- 

 wick, where plum trees flower very freely, but seldom produce ripe 

 fruit. Dr. Robb's account is as follows : " In the summer of 1839 I 

 had an opportunity of watching the process of desti-uction among the 

 plums, and it was as follows Before or soon after the segments of the 

 corolla had fallen oflF, the ovarium had become greenish yellow, soft, 

 and flabby. As the fruit continued to increase in magnitude, its colour 

 grew darker and of a more ruddy yeUow, and at the end of a fortnight 

 or three weeks the size of the abortive fi-uit rather exceeded that of a 

 ripe walnut. In fact, an obsei-ver might imagine himself to be walking 

 amongst trees laden with ripe apricots, but, like the fabled fruit on the 

 banks of the Dead Sea, these plums, though tempting to the eye, when 

 examined, were found to be hollow, containing air, and consisting only 

 of a distended skin, insipid, and tasteless. By-and-bye a greenish 

 mould is developed on the surface of the blighted fruit j then the surface 

 becomes black and shrivelled, and at the expiration of a month from 

 the time of flowering the whole are rotten and decomposed. The flower 

 appears about the beginning of June, and before August there is hardly 

 a plum to be seen. It is curious that where two flower-stalks arise 

 from one point of the branch, one will often go on to ripen in the 

 normal way, while the other will become abortive, as above described." 



In a specimen described by Mr. Berkeley there were two distinct 

 ovules of equal size close to the apex of the finiit, connected with the 

 base by vessels running down the walls. It should be obsen'ed that 

 there is a worthless variety of plum, Kirke's stoneless, or Sans Noyau, 

 in which the kernel is not surrounded by any bony deposit. 



2 Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr..' 1862, vol. ix, pp. 37 et 291. 



3 Carl Schimp, ' Fl. Friburg,' vii, p. 745 ; Hook, fil., ' Journ. Linn. 

 Soc.,' vi, p. 9. 



* ' Linnaja,' vol. v, 1830, p. 493. 



80 



