70 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 



be supposed that they are all really small, or, scientific- 

 ally speaking, true berries, but by common consent the 

 trailing plants, like the Strawberry, Cranberry, Black- 

 berry, cr upright growing bushes, like the Raspberry, 

 Gooseberry and Currant, have received the name of small 

 fruits or berries. 



There is such an immense number of fruits, and they 

 are so variable in structure that I can only refer to a few, 

 Hierely to show, in a very general way, their manner of 

 growth. There are simple and compound fruits and 

 various sub-divisions of each class. The common Plum 

 (figure 28), Peach and Cherry are familiar examples of 

 what .are termed simple fruits, or 

 the ripening of a one-celled pistil, 

 the seed or kernel being surround- 

 ed by a hard, bony shell, ai^d this 

 enclosed in a fleshy, edible pulp. 

 In the Cornel (Cornus Mas), and 

 common Dog-wood, the seed is 

 composed of two bony cells, one 

 often abortive, but all surrounded 

 by the fleshy, edible pulp. The 

 olive is also a drupe or stone fruit, 



but with a one-celled seed vessel. 

 Fig. 28. COMMON PLUM. ,, . , 



The Raspberry and Blackberry 



are really an aggregation of small stone fruits, their hard, 

 bony seed being surrounded with an edible pulp, each 

 seed being a ripened pistil, but all arranged on a conical 

 or elongated receptacle. But in these fruits the entire 

 cluster is the product of one flower. In the Mulberry, 

 however, which so closely resemEIes the Blackberry in 

 form and general appearance, the fruit- is really a Sorosis 

 or congeries of fruits, the product of numerous female or 

 pistillate flowers .united ; the calyx of each becoming suc- 

 culent and adhering to the ovary. The Bread fruit (Ar- 

 tocarpus) and the Pineapple (Ananassa) arc multiple 



