258 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



and slender clusters, six to eight inches in length, which, 

 when the tree is in full bloom, make it seem overlaid with 

 straw-coloured lacework or embroidery, visible across the 

 greensward, and delightful to look at, as far as the eye 

 can reach, lovelier still when seen beyond smooth water, 

 as at Crewe Hall. The female flowers are green and 

 sessile, and enveloped in filiform bracts, which, coalescing, 

 form the husk or involucre. In course of time, the woody 

 fibres partially disengage themselves, gradually enlarge, 

 and at last become those curious spiny tufts which 

 render the chestnut a veritable noli-me-tangere. Many 

 ovules are embedded in the ovary-cells while young, 

 and sometimes as many as six or seven will grow ripe, 

 but usually only two or three come to perfection, and 

 frequently there is only one, then of matronly fulness of 

 outline. When three ripen, the middle one is flattened 

 upon each side. The withered styles remain upon the 

 summit, proving every individual chestnut to be a genuine 

 " fruit," and not a mere " seed." A nut-like seed is at 

 any time distinguishable from a genuine fruit, by having 

 only one scar this, at the base, where it was attached to 

 the lining of the ovary : a true fruit is always told by 

 having two scars, the basal, and another at the summit, 

 the relics of the style or stigma. Omit not to pass the 

 finger over the lining of the involucre when the chestnuts 

 have fallen out ; no satin was ever so soft : a very lovely 

 feature of all the works of God is that they are finished 

 as exquisitely upon the inside as well as the outside, often 

 more so. 



