198 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



of the Ranunculaceae and the Rosaceae, then resembling 

 little heaps of dry seeds. Sometimes, instead of being 

 dry and seed-like, the constituent elements of the etaerio 

 are juicy: they then resemble tiny plums, and receive 

 the name of drupeolae or drupels, literally "little drupes." 

 Etaerios formed of drupels are seen in the ranunculaceous 

 genus Hydrastis, and in the raspberry and the blackberry 

 among the Rosaceae. Etaerios are produced by simple 

 and solitary flowers, or such as occur in the two orders 

 that have been named, and only by such. 



In other families it happens very frequently that scores 

 and even hundreds of minute flowers are closely packed 

 together, side by side, upon the surface of a broad round 

 cushion, or upon the outside of some kind of column or 

 conical pillar. The fruits which ensue from these are 

 again either dry and seed-like, as in the sunflower and 

 the scabious; or they may be juicy, as in the scarlet 

 cluster of the wild arum, the " lords-and-ladies " of the 

 country children. 



Another curious condition is induced by the mem- 

 bers of these little confederacies, when fleshy or juicy, 

 coalescing so completely as to form a solid mass, tessel- 

 lated upon the exterior. This occurs in the pine-apple 

 and the Benthamia. In the hip of the rose (a solitary and 

 independent flower) there is found yet another curious 

 condition. The part which in the raspberry is white and 

 conical, the drupels resting upon the outer surface, is 

 inverted, becoming a sort of urn, within which the 

 numerous little hard and stone-like fruits are completely 



