366 A TEXTBOOK OF BOTANY [Ch. VII, 4 



raise the plumose fruits well up into the winds ; and water 

 plants have analogous ways of drawing their pollinated 

 flowers under water, and later releasing the ripened fruit or 

 seeds (page 288). Several minor parts in connection with 

 dissemination have been ascribed to hygroscopic tissues, 

 with their power of strong movement (page 237), including 

 the sudden release of elastically set tissues, certain creeping 

 movements of fruits along the ground, and others, most of 

 them probably only incidental. 



Nowhere among plants, excepting in connection with cross- 

 pollination, appear so many features of structure which 

 have been interpreted as adaptations. Our sketch of the 

 subject does it little justice, but is all that our space per- 

 mits. The student can find ample additional detail in the 

 books especially devoted to this subject. 



4. Special Forms and Monstrosities of Fruits 



Fruits, like flowers, but unlike leaves, stems, and roots, 

 seem not to perform functions other than the one which 

 is primary and typical to them ; and conversely there seem 

 to be no special organs of plants which can be traced to a 

 morphological origin in a transformed fruit. But of ab- 

 normalities and monstrosities, fruits show a good many, 

 mostly having connection with similar features in flowers. 

 They have largely been treated, however, in earlier sections, 

 and need only be reviewed at this place. 



Mechanically caused effects, simulating monstrosities, are 

 found in Strawberries or Raspberries, where one side of the 

 fruit remains hard and green as result of a failure of com- 

 plete pollination (page 197) ; and an Apple or an Orange dis- 

 playing a clean-cut segment of different skin is a chimara, 

 resulting from grafting (page 211). Some twin fruits are 

 also a product of natural grafting when very young, soft- 

 tissued, and tightly pressed together (page 196), though some 

 twin fruits, as in Partridge Berry, are perfectly normal and 

 usual. 



