106 



DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY. 



PART 1. 



(108.) Form of Fruits. It would be impossible 

 in this treatise to enumerate the vast variety of forms 

 and characters which different fruits present. Some 

 are soft and pulpy ; others are very hard, woody, dry, 

 or membranaceous. It is sometimes one part, and 

 sometimes another, of the inflorescence, which becomes 

 developed into a succulent and nutritious form, in dif- 

 ferent fruits ; and a casual observer might easily 

 overlook these distinctions, in the general resem- 

 blance which they bear to one another (Jig. 113.). 



The raspberry (a), the strawberry (6), and perhaps 

 the mulberry (c), may be mentioned, as bearing a 

 considerable general resemblance to each other. In 

 the first, however, the juicy part consists of nume- 

 rous distinct and globular pericarps, each enclosing a 

 single seed, which are seated on a spongy unpalatable 

 torus. In the second, it is the torus which becomes 

 pulpy, whilst the pericarps remain dry, and are scat- 

 tered over its surface in the form of little grains, com- 

 monly considered as naked seeds. In these two cases, 

 the fruit is the produce of a single flower ; but in the 

 mulberry, the structure is altogether different. This 

 tree is monoecious ; and the small fertile flowers or 

 such as contain pistils, and no stamens are disposed 

 in a dense spike. It is the calyx of each flower which 

 becomes succulent, and thus the fruit is made up of 

 the aggregate mass of these altered calyces, each of 

 which invests a dry pericarp, containing the seed. 



