172 VEGETABLE ORGANOGRAPHY. 



is situated at their apex, seeming to be a kind of ex- 

 crescence. 



In Hovenia dulcis, they also become fleshy after 

 flowering, and seem to form the true fruit. 



Section VI. 



Of the Aggregation of Fruits which proceed from 

 differe7it Flowers. 



The facts mentioned in the preceding section lead us 

 to the study of Aggregated fruits, or those formed 

 by the intimate or apparent union of fruits proceeding 

 in reality from different flowers. This phenomenon 

 never occurs but in plants where the carpels are solitary 

 and most frequently monospermous by abortion ; it 

 likewise almost always supposes, as necessary condi- 

 tions, on the one hand that the solitary carpel is united 

 to the calyx, and on the other that the flowers are 

 placed very near together. I shall explain this by 

 examples derived first from capitate or umbellate flowers, 

 and afterwards from those in spikes. 



Honeysuckles have naturally two flowers which arise 

 from the same axil ; their pedicels are frequently united 

 into one, which consequently bears two flowers and 

 two berries ; but it happens in several species, as for 

 example, Lonicera Xylosteon, that the two fruits are 

 more or less united into a single one, bilobed or almost 

 entire ; in this last case, the union is perceived, either 

 because, during flowering, we saw two corollas upon an 

 apparently single ovary, or because, after this period, 

 we recognise the two eyes which indicate the fall of the 



