FRUIT. 51 



celled, few-seeded ; the outer coats of the pericarp are uni- 

 ted with the calyx, and the inner one is horny. (Apple.) 



280. The pepo is indehiscent and fleshy, one-celled, 

 and many- seeded, the seeds having a parietal placenta- 

 tion, and imbedded in pulp. (Cucumber.) 



281. The berry is pulpy and indehiscent, many- 

 celled and many-seeded, the seeds being loosened from 

 their placenta as the fruit becomes ripe. (Gooseberry.) 



282. Collective Fruit. The term sy conns is applied to 

 a fruit formed of a depressed fleshy axis, bearing separate 

 flowers, whose pericarpia are dry. The axis is sometimes 

 in the form of a hollow receptacle. (The Fig.) 



283. The strobiius or cone (&), presents a form of 

 structure very different indeed from the fruit of most 

 other plants, and its true signification must be said to 

 be yet undecided. According to Brown, the scales of a 

 cone are bractete, within which and laying upon the face 

 of them are the open and scale-like ovaria, upon which 

 are a pair of naked ovules ; whilst, according to 

 Schleiden, the scales are not bractese, but actual car- 

 pellary leaves, whilst the expansions on their internal 

 faces are enlarged placenta. Whatever view is taken 

 of them, the student will see here an example of what 

 are termed naked seeds, but must remember that what 

 were thought to be so by Linnaeus, or at least so called 

 by him, are not naked seeds at all, but seeds whose pe- 

 ricarpia become contracted closely upon them, as in 

 Labiates, &c., and which are distinctly enough endowed 

 with a fruit-like covering, though in the Coniferae they 

 are truly destitute of it. 



284. The sorosis is fleshy, formed by the union of 

 both ovaria and floral coverings into a single mass. 

 (Mulberry.) 



285. Having described the ripened and matured ova- 

 rium under the form of pericarp, we have now to speak 

 of the perfected ovule under the form of seed. 



286. The base of a seed is that part by which it is 

 attached to the placenta, and is called the hilum ; this 



