120 CLASSIFICATION OF FRUITS 



cidally divisible at maturity into one-seeded parts." Schizocarps are 

 commonly provided with appendages for wind-transportation or for 

 transportation by mechanical adhesion to passing bodies. Those forms 

 which, as above stated, are intermediate toward drupes are to be 

 classed in one or the other class, according to whether such appendages 

 for distribution, or that of an edible pericarp, is the more pronounced. 

 Even schizocarps which are not cremocarps may possess a carpophore, 

 as in geranium, though commonly they do not. 



The Cremocarp (Figs. 247 and 288). — A di-carpellary schizocarp, the 

 carpels attached toward their summits to a slender carpophore, from 

 which they usually only incompletely separate at maturity. The term 

 is restricted to the fruits of the UmbeUiferae. They are commonly 

 provided with appendages for fixation to passing bodies, frequently 

 for wind-transportation, and not rarely combine these two methods 

 of distribution. {Coniiim, Celery, etc.) There is no class of fruits which 

 possesses a greater importance in pharmacy, and hardly any whose 

 histological features are of greater interest. The plane of separation is 

 called the Commissure, a term applicable to a similar plane in other 

 fruits. (See Mericarp.) 



The Coccus, Nucula, or Nutlet (Fig. 330, a, and Fig. 334, a).— One of 

 the divisions of a schizocarp, and its nature has been explained in con- 

 sidering that group. The term nutlet is commonly applied when the 

 pericarp is hard and close to the seed. 



The Mericarp (Fig. 247, either half). — One of the halves into which a 

 cremocarp is divisible. Occasionally they are self-separating at matur- 

 ity, but usually only incompletely so. They are one-seeded and possess 

 a completely adnate calyx and disk. The pericarp almost uniformly 

 possesses external appendages in the form of five or nine ribs, as is well 

 shown in cross-sections (Fig. 335, h). When nine, they are commonly 

 of two forms, alternating with one another. A part or all of them are 

 much subject to extension into variously appendaged or pinnatifid 

 wings (Fig. 336, a). Internally, the mesocarp is almost uniformly 

 traversed upon both the faces and the backs of the carpel by tubes 

 called Vittae (Fig. 335, a), commonly with suberous walls and filled 

 with volatile oil. The dorsal vittae alternate in position with the ribs. 

 Upon thin transverse sections these oil-ducts or vittae appear as per- 

 forations, and as to their number and position serve the most important 

 purposes in diagnosis and identification, as do also the ribs. These 

 fruits are dorsally compressed when broader from right to left (Fig. 

 336), laterally compressed when broader in the opposite direction. 



