76 OUR COMMON FRUITS. 



and the final step forms a central pistil, the divisions of 

 which, if more than one leaf enters into its composition, 

 are termed carpels. Cultivation or other causes will 

 sometimes " reverse the charm " and induce retrograde 

 metamorphosis, such as is seen in ordinary double flowers, 

 where the petals, which in the usual course of nature 

 would have changed into stamens, are arrested in their 

 progress and retained in the former stage, the flower thus 

 spending its whole capital at once merely to obtain the 

 more showy appearance of a largely increased number of 

 transitory petals, instead of making a provision for the 

 future by investing some portion in the formation of sta- 

 mens, a proceeding which involves its fortune dying with 

 it, for in the absence of those organs of fertilization the 

 ovary cannot be fecundated, and can never therefore ma- 

 ture into a fruit. In the double cherry-blossom, however, 

 a still more marked retrogression often takes place, an 

 ultra reactionary movement beginning just when the ex- 

 tremest point of difference has been reached ; for not only 

 do extra petals take the place of stamens, but the inner- 

 most carpels, instead of combining to form a pistil, revert 

 to the most normal figure and become a group of separate 

 leafy expansions in the middle of the flower ; as though 

 a party of princes of the blood who had overcome all 

 opposition should suddenly resign all thought of monarchy, 

 and resolving themselves into a democratic convention, 

 hang out the red flag of egalite from the very throne-room 

 of the palace. The result is that the withering of the 

 blossom leaves behind a bunch of leaves instead of a suc- 

 culent fruit. Even, however, when no such striking proof 

 of identity of essence in the various parts of the plant 

 occurs, the morphologist still traces in the ordinary cherry 

 (the germ of which was seen in the blossom in the form 

 of the little ovary at the base of the pistil, now swollen 

 and become pulpy) all the elements of the leaves, and 

 looks on it as only a leaf bent in upon itself and with its 

 edges united, the place of their junction being marked by 

 the furrow seen not only on the surface of the fruit, but 

 which extends even to the very kernel, always found to 

 be more or less deeply fluted. The leaf consisted of three 



