THE FRUIT. 



17 



THE FRUIT. 



97. The Fruit is the ripened ovary with its contents, and with the 

 calyx-tube when this is consolidated with it as conspicuously in the Apple, 

 the Pear, etc. Our definition shows that the word "fruit" in technical 

 language does not exactly coincide with its meaning in com- 

 mon use. For example, the Strawberry, a delicious " fruit/' in 

 common language, consists principally of an enlarged fleshy 

 receptacle, no fruit at all in technical language, while the true 



fruit is the numerous small ripened ovaries, each with a single 

 seed, which cover its surface and could hardly be thought of as 

 even edible. 



98. The ripened wall of the ovary, with the adnate part of 



the calyx, if any, is called the pericarp, and in process of FIG. 32. 



maturing it may remain thin and dry or may change greatly 



by becoming thick, pulpy and 

 juicy when it is said to be 

 fleshy or part may become 

 fleshy and the rest hard as seen 

 in the Peach, Cherry, etc. In 

 these cases, where the pericarp is 

 distinctly divisible into two parts, 

 the outer or fleshy part is called 

 the exocarp, and the inner or 

 hard part the endocarp or epi- 

 carp, which is the stone or pit, 

 and within this the "kernel" is 

 the seed proper. 



99. When the pericarp opens 

 at maturity to liberate the seeds, 

 it is said to be dehiscent in dis- 

 tinction from those that are inde- 

 hiscent, or do not thus open; 

 FIG. 33. and when the dehiscence is along 



a suture or partition it is said to 



be septicidal, or, when midway between the sutures, loculicidal. Cir- 



cumcissile is a mode of dehiscence which is transversely around the 



pericarp. 



100. Fruits are free or aggregated, according as they are formed by 



the ripening of respectively, a single (either simple or compound) pistil 



or an aggregation of pistils. The varieties found are quite numerous, 



and the most important are shown in the following: 



Fig. 32. Scale from a Pine cone, showing the two winged seeds attached to its inner 

 (upper) surface. (From Hough's Elements of Forestry.) 



Fig. 33. Flowers of the Hornbeam, the two lower catkins being staminate and the upper one 

 pistillate. (From Hough's Elements of Forestry.) 



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