38 FAMILIAR TREES 



ask the raison d'etre of this rosy-cheeked, succulent 

 and juicy fruit, we are again met by some of the most 

 interesting problems of modern botany. The act of 

 fertilisation or impregnation seems to have an effect 

 comparable to that of the puncture of a gall-fly in 

 determining the flow of nutriment in the direction of 

 the fertilised seeds and their enclosing ovary: the 

 petals and stamens wither and fall ; and in nearly 

 every fruit enlargement of the ovary, and often of 

 some adjacent structures, takes place. A succu- 

 lent fruit is thus produced, often having some gay 

 autumn tint, red, gold, or purple, attractive to the 

 bird-world by its colour, and by its lusciousness 

 when ripe. In the Apple the five ovaries are not at 

 first united, but are subsequently overgrown and 

 completely joined by the development of the so-called 

 "calyx-tube," an outgrowth from the flower-stalk, 

 which shuts in the parchment-like core, and carries 

 up with it the withered calyx-leaves to form a 

 crown on the summit of the fruit. 



The ripe Apple falling to the ground, reminding us 

 in its fall of the somewhat apocryphal tale of Newton 

 and the discovery of gravitation, must often have 

 become the prey of the wild boars, deer, and cattle of 

 the primeval forests of Europe. The Crab-tree, in 

 fact, owes its preservation in our forests to protective 

 regulations for the sake of the deer. Its firm skin 

 may for some time keep the decaying pulp together 

 so as to manure the germinating seed ; and the tough 

 dark brown skin of the seed itself offers such resist- 

 ance both to damp and to the digestive process as 

 to secure to it a fair chance of sprouting in due 



