474 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



" fruit." The ovary occupies the cavity of this much-distended tube, and 

 is fused with the inner wall of it. The " pips " are the seeds. This form 

 of spurious fruit is termed a pome (fig. 580). The chief substance of a fig. 

 again, is its fleshy receptacle or axis, the true fruits being the hard yellow 

 grains borne on the inside of the cavity of the receptacle. In the Mul- 

 berry (Moms') the bracts of the clustering flowers coalesce with the peri- 

 anth, and form a succulent matrix for the individual fruits. A mulberry 

 is, in fact, a collection of spurious fruits fused together in botanical 

 language, a pseudo-syncarp (fig. 581). 



Other well-known examples of pseudo-syncarps are afforded by the 

 Bread-fruit-tree (Artocarpus incisa) and the Pineapple (Ananassa sativa). 

 These collective fruits, as they are called, must be carefully distinguished 

 from aggregate frtdts. in which the clustered carpels are derived from a 

 single flower, as in the Raspberry and Black- 

 berry (Rabus idceus and R. fruticosus). The 

 raspberry and blackberry, moreover, are syn- 

 carps, not pseudo-syncarps. 



Thus we come to true fruits. These may be 

 conveniently divided into three classes. To the 

 first class belong those fruits which break and 

 shed their seeds, or are dehiscent ; to the second 

 class, those which do not break, or are inde- 

 hiscent ; and to the third class, those splitting 

 fruits which in some cases shed their seeds, and 

 in others the majority of cases do not. We 

 call these splitting fruits schizocarps. 



Of the various forms of dehiscent fruits one 

 of the commonest is the capsule. Strictly speak- 

 ing, capsules are fruits with two or more carpels 

 whose pericarp liberates the seeds by toothed 

 or valvular openings, by pores, or by the falling off of a lid ; but the term 

 is frequently applied, with more latitude than correctness, to all dry de- 

 hiscent fruits. However, as the other forms of capsule have special distin- 

 guishing names, we shall here employ the term in its more exclusive sense. 



Good examples of porous capsules are found in the Poppy (Papaver}. 

 The pores are provided with little flaps on the sides, beneath the eaves 

 of a roof-like top, and these flaps move up and close the pores in time 

 of rain, or when the atmosphere is exceptionally moist. In dry weather 

 they open outwards, and as the poppy-heads sway in the breeze the light 

 small seeds get shaken out and scattered over a wide area. 



Protective arrangements somewhat similar to the above seem to be 

 a special feature in what are known as toothed capsules. The Corn-cockle 

 (Lychnis githago, fig. 583) is a case in point. In wet weather its five teeth 

 meet in a point and prevent the entrance of a drop of rain but on dry 



FIG. 583. CORN-COCKLE. 



Toothed capsule open an 1 close.1. 



