ITS KINDS. 



299 



appearance of a peculiar abnormal placentation, which the study 

 of the ovary readily explains. In the watermelon the edible 

 pulp all belongs to the greatly developed placenta?. Fruits of 

 this family in which the rind also is soft at maturity are true 

 berries. 



577. The Hesperidium (orange, lemon, and lime) is the fleshy 

 fruit of a free many-celled ovary with a leathery rind, and is a 

 mere variety of the berry. The name is 



applied only to fruits of the Orange tribe. 



578. The Berry (Lat. Bacca) comprises 

 all simple fruits in which the pericarp is 

 fleshj- throughout. The grape, gooseberry, 

 currant, cranberry (Fig. 645), banana, and 

 tomato are familiar examples. The first 

 and last consist of an ovary free from the 

 calyx ; in the others, calyx and ovary are 

 combined by adnation. 



579. Aggregate Fruits are those in which 

 a cluster of carpels, all belonging to one 

 flower, are crowded on the receptacle into 

 one mass, as in the raspberry and black- 

 berry taken as a whole. (Fig. 646.) They 

 may be aggregates of any kind of simple 



fruits. But when dry and not coherent, the mass would simply 

 and properly be described as a head or spike of carpels, more 

 commonly of akenes, as in Ranunculus, Ane- 

 mone, &c. Yet when numerous carpels thus 

 compacted become fleshy, and sometimes more 

 or less coherent, the aggregate may need to be 

 taken into account. The best name for it is 

 that of SYNCAKPIUM, or in English 

 form SYNCARP. But the term has 

 been applied to multiple fruits as 

 well. 1 In Hydrastis, the numerous 

 carpels imbricated on the upper 

 part of the torus are baccate, that 

 is, become berries ; in a raspberry, 

 the seemingly baccate grains are drupaceous (being drupelets, 573), 



1 The syncarp which is a gynoecium might be designated a simple syn- 

 carpium ; that which is an inflorescence, a complex syncarpium, which may be 

 biflorous, pauciflorous, or multiflorous. 



FIG. 645. The larger Cranberry, Vaccinium (Oxycoccus) macrocarpon ; the berry 

 transversely divided. 



FIG. 646. Vertical section of half of a blackberry (of Rubus villoeus), enlarged ; and, 

 647, of one of its drupelets more magnified. 



