CHAPTER XVI 

 THE FRUIT 1 



180. What constitutes a fruit. It is not easy to make a 

 short and simple definition of what botanists mean by the term 

 fruit. It has very little to do with the popular use of the 

 word. Briefly stated, the definition may be given as follows : The 

 fruit of a seed plant consists of the matured ovary and contents, 

 together with any intimately connected parts. Botanically spea^:- 

 ing, the bur of beggar's ticks (Fig. 344), the 

 three-cornered grain of buckwheat, and 

 such true grains as wheat and oats are as 

 much fruits as is an apple or a peach. 



181. Classes of fruits. Fruits may be 

 divided into four classes as follows: 

 (a) unipistillary fruits, those which re- 

 sult from the ripening of a single pistil ; 

 (i) aggregate fruits, those which result 

 FIG. 169. Group of fol- ^ rom the ripening of a cluster of carpels 

 licles and a single of one flower, massed together; (c) acces- 



follicle of the monks- sor y fruits, those in which the main bulk 



hood 



of the fruit consists of something else be- 

 sides the carpels, e.g. calyx or receptacle, 

 added to a simple or an aggregate fruit ; (d) multiple or col- 

 lective fruits, those which result from the combination of the 

 ripened pistils of two or more flowers into one mass. 



182. Forms of unipistillary fruits : the capsule. This is a 

 dry fruit, splitting open (dehiscing] to allow the seeds to escape. 

 Capsules of simple pistils may either open along one line, as 



1 See Gray, Structural Botany, chap, vii, also Kerner and Oliver, Natural 

 History of Plants, Vol. II, pp. 227-438. 



146 



After Fagnet 



