FRUITS 



267 



304. Collective, or multiple, fruits. — The pineapple is an 

 example of both an accessory and a multiple fruit, being 

 composed of the 

 ripened ovaries of . v N. A- 

 a number of sep- 

 arate flowers that 

 have become 

 more or less co- 

 herent. Theosage 

 orange, sweet 

 gum balls, fig, and 

 mulberry are 

 other examples 

 of this class. 



305. Dissection 

 of a multiple fruit. 

 — Get one of the 

 dried figs sold by 

 the grocers. Look 

 at the small end ^ ._„ ._. ,. „• , r . r .u 



Figs. 402-404. — Multiple fruit of the pineapple : 

 where the skin 402, external vaew of a ripe fruit, showing the prolonged 

 nricririQfps- nf wViQf receptacle growing into a new plant above, and the scaly 

 UligiXld;ieb, Ul Wllctt bracted covering below ; 40.3, vertical section through the 

 part is it a modi- ^xls of a fruit, showing a, the receptacle, with 6, b, the 

 fi ,• f) r OQCi \ ^*'*'^y ovaries cohering around it and forming the edible 

 ncailOn . (^ Z O v.) p^rt of the fruit ; 404, a single " eye " or scale, somewhat 

 Can VOU think of reduced, showing the scaly bract from the axil of which 

 the (generally) abortive flower originates. 



a reason for this 



curious, urnlike enlargement of the receptacle ? Is there any- 

 thing about the fig, for instance, that renders it peculiarly 

 liable to be preyed upon by birds and insects ? Could any 

 but a very small insect get through the eye without in- 

 juring the fruit? Could it free itself from the sticky mass 

 inside and get out again without difficulty? Would you 

 judge from this that the caprification of the fig is easily 

 effected (279), even when the fig wasp is present? Can you 

 now account for the fact that over four hundred varieties of 

 cultivated figs ripen their fruit without fertilization ? 



402 



40.3 



