CHAPTER XVIII 



FRUITS AND SEEDS AND THEIR USES 



290. True Fruits and False Fruits. We have seen that 

 the fruit of an angiosperm consists of a fruit coat which 

 encloses one or more seeds ; often also there is more or less 

 tissue between the seeds. The fruits of many angiosperms, 

 like those of the cucumber and the bean, contain more than 

 one seed each ; the fruits of many others are one-seeded. 

 All the members of the grass family, for example, to which 

 the corn belongs, have one- 

 seeded fruits ; so have the 

 members of the composite 

 family, which includes dan- 

 delions and thistles. In the 

 composites and in most 

 grasses, as in the corn, the 

 fruit coat is thin and fits so 

 closely about the seed that strawberry. B, a lengthwise section 



the whole fruit looks much of * he , sa f e; a > " en en< ?, [ th f 

 pedicel; b, one of the small, hard, 

 like a seed. Our common true fruits ; c, the sepals. 

 nuts, too, are one-seeded 



fruits. The shell of a hazel nut, a walnut, a hickory nut, 

 a chestnut, or an acorn is the fruit coat ; the part inside, 

 which we eat, is the seed. 



A fruit which, like all those mentioned so far, has been 

 formed from the ovary alone (with its enclosed seed or seeds) , 

 is spoken of as a true fruit, because the word fruit is some- 

 times applied to a thing that is more than a true fruit. An 

 example of the latter sort is the red " fruit " that we call a 

 283 



FlG . l65 .-A, the false fruit of the 



