92 THE EVOLUTIONIST AT LARGE. 



It is a curious fact about the rose family 

 that they have a very marked tendency to 

 produce such fleshy fruits, instead of the 

 mere dry seed-vessels of ordinary plants, 

 which are named fruits only by botanical 

 courtesy. For example, we owe to this single 

 family the peach, plum, apricot, cherry, dam- 

 son, pear, apple, medlar, and quince, all of 

 them cultivated in gardens or orchards for 

 their fruits. The minor group known by 

 the poetical name of Dryads, alone supplies 

 us with the strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, 

 and dewberry. Even the wilder kinds, refused 

 as food by man, produce berries well known 

 to our winter birds the haw, rose-hip, sloe, 

 bird-cherry, and rowan. On the other hand, 

 the whole tribe numbers but a single thorough- 

 going nut the almond ; and even this nut, 

 always somewhat soft-shelled and inclined to 

 pulpiness, has produced by a ' sport ' the 

 wholly fruit-like nectarine. The odd thing 

 about the rose tribe, however, is this : that 

 the pulpy tendency shows itself in very dif- 



