STRAWBERBIES. 207 



little convexity occupying the centre consists of a num- 

 ber of distinct ovaries, sometimes amounting to 100, and 

 Duchesne had even counted as many as 300, not adhering, 

 but pressed into close proximity, and all inserted into a 

 common receptacle. When the snowy petals have fallen 

 off and the stamens shrivelled away, the [nest-like calyx 

 closes round this cluster of tender fledgelings, while the 

 receptacle on which they are pillowed begins to swell 

 beneath them, gradually bearing them up and apart, wider 

 and wider as it distends, till they lie scattered in the 

 form of seeds all over the surface of what has now become 

 a soft, crimson, juicy mass ; like a band of brethren carried 

 by the force of changing circumstances far from the 

 common house of their infancy, and severed to meet no 

 more till the whole fabric of their world shall dissolve. 

 The pressure of a human lip can re-unite them, and who 

 can say that the fulfiller of the tender office is not " twice 

 blessed" ? Though termed in common parlance a " berry," 

 the strawberry therefore, botanically speaking, is merely 

 "a fleshy receptacle studded with seeds," the green calyx 

 still remaining at the base, at once an ornament and pro- 

 tection to the fruit, which, bending downwards with its 

 own weight, finds the same leafy cover stretched above it 

 as a shelter which was spread beneath the light upward- 

 turned flower as a support. J The pulpy mass into which 

 this receptacle has grown is covered with a thin epider- 

 mis or skin, pierced under each ovary to afford a passage 

 to the vessels which oiourish it, and which stretches as 

 the fruit enlarges ; but as the vessels do not elongate in 

 proportion, the seeds lie each embedded in a little niche, 

 with the soft substance of the voluptuous cushion on 

 which they repose swelling up between and around them. 

 These seeds (as they are commonly called, though really 

 seed-vessels) are irregular oval grains, enveloped in two 

 skins, and divided vertically into two lobes, between 

 which, at the point, is the embryo, in a reversed position, 

 with the radicle, or future root, pointing upwards, and 

 the plantule, or future stem, downwards. 



The above description refers of course to the perfect 

 flower, in which every part essential to fructification is 



