246 GENERAL BOTANY . 



but become dry and open later as follicles. The 

 fruit of CERBERA ODOLLAM looks at first like a fleshy 

 drupe, but the mesocarp dries up into a network of 

 woody fibres between which there is only air, so that 

 till the epicarp has rotted away, the whole fruit is 

 much lighter than water and floats readily. The 

 same is the case with the Coconut which is really 

 not a nut proper, but a drupe with a fibrous mesocarp. 

 It is probably due to this peculiarity that both these 

 plants are found widely distributed along seabeaches 

 in the tropics, their fruits being carried by the sea from 

 place to place. 



The foregoing are the principal kinds of fruit found 

 among plants. There are, of course, variations of 

 these for which special names have been invented, 

 but it will be really quite sufficient for our purpose, 

 if we are able to determine rightly to what type a 

 fruit belongs, without troubling ourselves about the 

 name of the special variation. 



We must, however, notice that all the fruits of 

 any one species, are of the same type and behave 

 in the same way. 



Schizocarps and capsules, drupes and berries are 

 never found on the same plant, nor on different plants 

 of the same species, still less are fleshy and dry 

 fruits. The kind of fruit and the way in which it 

 opens is as much a characteristic of the species as 

 are the shape or nature of its leaves. Further, as 

 explained in chapter xii, we usually group together 

 into a genus, species which being somewhat similar 

 in other respects are also alike in their flowers and 

 fruit, so that the type of fruit is also characteristic 



