174 VEGETABLE ORGANOGRAPHY. 



proceeding from different flowers, and those of the latter 

 caryopses proceeding from but one flower. 



What I have said of the Fig becomes still clearer 

 when we compare it with the neighbouring genera 

 Amhora and Dorstenia, in which the receptacle is open. 



Flowers disposed in spikes sometimes present all the 

 phenomena which I have above mentioned ; thus, when 

 we follow the Mulberry from its flowering to maturity, 

 we see that the flowers are sessile on an axis which is 

 articulated at its base ; after flowering, the ovary is 

 covered by the perigone, and is transformed into a small 

 pulpy fruit; all these fruits are united incompletely 

 together, and appear the more readily to form a single 

 one, as the general peduncle disarticulates at its base, so 

 that the Mulberry is detached from the tree like simple 

 fruits. All that I have said of this fruit is strictly 

 applicable to the Bread-fruit, except that in the latter 

 the partial fruits are more completely united, and the 

 whole fruit which results from the aggregation is larger, 

 and the flesh more farinaceous ; and as for the culti- 

 vated Bread-fruit, we may add that the seeds are almost 

 always abortive, leaving their places empty, which forms 

 the irregular cavities in the centre of the mass. 



The history of the Pine-apple slightly differs from the 

 preceding examples : the flowers are disposed in a dense 

 spike along the stem, almost as in Eucomis; after 

 flowering, the flowers which have the perigone adherent 

 to the ovary, are each transformed into a fleshy fruit, 

 originally trilocular; these are united first with the 

 bracts situated at their base, afterwards with each other; 

 the development of the fleshy part, and the intensity of 

 the union, are greater in proportion as the number of 

 abortive seeds is great ; and when they are all abortive, 

 as in the cultivated ones, there results a compact oval 

 head, in the centre of which we see, as in the Bread- 



