291 



CHAPTER VII. 



OF THE FRUIT. 



The fi'uit, which is mechanically destined as a mere protec- 

 tion to the seed, by which its race is to be maintained, is also, 

 next to the wood, the most important part in the productions 

 of vegetation. It constitutes the principal part of the food, 

 especially in winter, of birds and small animals ; it is often 

 moi'e ornamental than the flowers themselves, and it con- 

 tributes most materially to the necessities and luxuries of 

 mankind. When ripe, it falls from the plant, and, borne down 

 by its weight, lies on the ground at the foot of the individual 

 that produced it : here its seeds vegetate, when it decays, and a 

 crop of new individuals arises from the base of the old one; but, 

 as plants produced in such a manner would soon choke and 

 destroy each other, nature has provided a multitude of ways 

 for their greater dispersion. Many are carried to distant spots 

 by the animals which eat them : others, provided with a sort 

 of wings, such as the samai'a, and the pappus of Compositae, 

 fly away upon the wind to seek a distant station : others scat- 

 ter their seeds abroad by an explosion of the pericarp caused 

 by a sudden contraction of the tissue ; many, falling upon the 

 surface of streams, are carried along by the current; while 

 others are dispersed by a variety of methods which it would 

 be tedious to enumerate. 



The fruit, during its growth, is supported at the expense 

 of the sap generally : but most especially of that which had 

 been previously accumulated for its maintenance. This is 

 less apparent in perennial or ligneous plants than in annual 

 ones, but is capable of demonstration in both. Knight has 

 well observed, that in annual fruit-bearing plants, such as the 

 melon, if a fruit is allowed to form at a very early period of 

 the life of the plant, as, for instance, in the axil of the third 



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