FRUITS AND SEEDS 



193 



a fruit very similar in appearance to the blackberry is the 

 product, not of a single flower, but an inflorescence. 



In the berry (Fig. 99) all the pericarp is soft except the 

 outer skin, which is tough and elastic, and covered with 

 wax (grapes) or hairs (gooseberry). The seeds are hard 

 and indigestible. The gooseberry is an inferior berry. 



2. Fleshy fruits in which the receptacle, or some part 

 of the flower or inflorescence other than the carpels, 

 predominates. They are all " false " fruits. In the 

 pome the fruit is inferior, and the succulent portion is 

 receptacle which has become fused with the carpels. 

 In the apple the true fruit is the core, which is formed 

 of five carpels, each containing one or two seeds. In the 

 haw, the fruit of the hawthorn, the fleshy receptacle 



^ Q 



CT- b 



.-'C 



FlG. 100." PSEUDOCARP " OF 



STRAWBERRY. 



a, achenes ; b, succulent receptacle ; 

 c, persistent calyx. 



FIG. 99. FRUIT 

 OF GOOSE- 

 BERRY. 



FIG. 101. MUL- 

 TIPLE FRUIT OF 

 MULBERRY. 



encloses one or two hard nuts. In the rose a large 

 number of achenes are enclosed in a cup-shaped receptacle, 

 which forms the succulent portion of the fruit. This is 

 biologically a berry, just as the pome is biologically a 

 drupe. In the strawberry (Fig. 100), another rosaceous 

 plant, the receptacle, instead of enclosing the achenes, 

 as in the rose, swells out into a succulent mass, carrying 

 the tiny achenes on its surface. 



In other cases the fruit is not the result of the matura- 

 tion of a single flower, but of a whole inflorescence. In 

 the mulberry (Fig. 101) the fruit consists of a number of 

 little drupe-like bodies, each of which is the product of 

 a single flower ; the fleshy portion is formed from four 

 fused perianth-leaves. In the fig (Fig. 102) the axis of 

 the inflorescence forms a hollow, pear-shaped fruit, which 



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