ITS KINDS. 



301 



581. Gaultheria procumbens, the aromatic Wintergreen (Fig. 

 651, 652), affords a good example of the first. Its seeming 

 berry (the checkerberry) , with summit crowned by the tips of 

 the calyx-lobes, well imitates the true 



berry of a Vaccinium, such as that of 

 Fig. 645. But it comes from a flower 

 with thin calyx, underneath and free 

 from the ovary. Its fruit is really 

 a capsule : in the process of fructi- 

 fication, the calyx enlarges, becomes 

 succulent, completely encloses the capsule or true fruit, yet 

 without adhering to it, and in ripening counterfeits a red 

 berry. So in Shepherdia, or Buffalo Berry, the seeming sarco- 

 carp of a drupe is really a free calyx, accrescent and succulent, 

 enclosing an akene. So, also, the apparent achenium or nut of 

 Mirabilis, or Four-o'clock, and of its allies, 

 is the thickened and indurated base of the 

 tube of a free catyx, which contracts at the 

 apex and encloses the true pericarp (a utricle 

 or thin akene) , but does not cohere with it. 



582. Likewise the torus, although not con- 

 spicuous, may be said to be an accessory part 

 of the aggregate fruit of the Blackbeny or 

 Bramble (579) : it becomes the solely con- 

 spicuous and the sole edible part of a straw- 

 berry (389, Fig. 406, 653), the akenes or 

 true fruits dispersed over the surface being 

 apparently insignificant. Equally in man} T 



multiple fruits the conspicuous flesh belongs to receptacle (either 

 torus or rhachis), to calyx, or even in part to bracts, or to all 

 these parts combined, as in a pine-apple. 



583. Multiple or Collective Fruits 1 are those which result from 

 the aggregation of several flowers into one mass. The simplest 

 of these are those of the Partridge-Berry (Mitchella, Fig. 467), 



r 



1 Collective is the preferable name. The term multiple was applied by 

 DeCandolle to what are here (following Lindley) called aggregate, fruits ; 

 and the aggregate fruits of DeCandolle are here called multiple or collective. 

 Moreover, the distinction between accessory or anthocarpous and collective 

 or multiple fruits was not recognized by Lindley, who combined the two 

 in his original "Introduction to Botany." In this work four classes are 

 given : 1. Fruit simple, APOCARPI ; 2. Fruit aggregate, AGGREGATI ; 



FIG. 651. Forming capsule of Gaultheria procumbens, with enlarging calyx partly 

 covering it. 652. Same, more advanced, and in longitudinal section. 



FIG. 653. Vertical section of half a strawberry. Compare with Fig. 406. 



