CLUE TO THE HOMOLOGIES OF FRUITS 255 



legume. As shown in Chapter XIII, the legumes lose before 

 dehiscing nearly all the water they can yield to the air ; whilst 

 the capsule before it opens may not even have commenced 

 to dry, or loses only a small proportion of the water that it 

 ultimately gives up in the air-drying process. The greater 

 part of the shrinking and of the hardening of the seeds belongs 

 to this stage. 



(4) This stage characterises only the berry and the legume, 

 since the dried capsule has already completed its stages and 

 is lying widely open with its seeds falling out. The shrivelled 

 berry and the dry pod now in their turn liberate their seeds, 

 the one by decay and the other by dehiscence. 



Such are some of the principal points brought out in 

 this comparison of the capsule, legume, and berry. Additional 

 evidence will be adduced in support of most of them in 

 the following chapters. 



There is much that is significant in this correspondence 

 between these three different kinds of fruits, and much that 

 we should bear in mind when we speak of special adaptation The question 

 'for dispersal of fruits and seeds. Though there is a great tion. 

 deal that may please the eye and captivate the fancy in the 

 mechanisms of a dehiscing pod or capsule, it is doubtful 

 whether they represent anything more in nature than the 

 rotting apple and the shriveUing currant. The exposure 

 of the brightly coloured seed in the opening pod, as in 

 AbruSy Adenanthera^ and Erythrina^ often adds beauty to the 

 plant ; yet, viewed from this standpoint, it is nothing more 

 than one observes in the seeds exposed in the decaying 

 orange and in the rotting Anona fruit as they lie on the 

 ground. If the seeds in the ripe berry, or mature baccate 

 fruit, are in the same stage as those in the mellowing capsule 

 before it opens, or in the closed, full-sized green legume on 

 the eve of drying, then the shrivelled berry represents the 

 dried- up open capsule and the shrunken but still closed 

 legume. 



In all three fruits the shrivelling and drying, whether 



