2 8 4 



TEXTBOOK OF BOTANY 



strawberry (Fig. 165). The soft, juicy part of a strawberry 

 is really the thickened end of the pedicel to which sepals, 

 petals, stamens, and pistils were attached ; the little hard 

 bodies that are borne in pits on the surface of the berry are 

 one-seeded true fruits. Each true fruit has been formed 

 from the ovary of one of the many pistils of the strawberry 

 flower. A structure which, like a strawberry, is more than 

 a true fruit (because it has been developed from something 

 more than - an ovary) is called a false fruit. This is not a 

 very fortunate name, because there 

 is nothing false about a strawberry ; 

 but it is a name that is rather 

 widely used. 



The fleshy part of an apple is 

 formed by a thickening of the end 

 of the pedicel and of the lower parts 

 of the sepals, and only the core is 

 developed from the ovary. The 

 apple, therefore, like the pear and 

 the quince, which resemble it in this 

 respect, is a false fruit. The fleshy 

 part of the fig, another false fruit, 

 is, as we have seen, the sac-shaped 

 end of a peduncle ; inside it are the 

 small, seed-like true fruits. A pine- 

 apple is formed by the thickening of a whole flower cluster, 

 including the separate flowers, the bracts, and the peduncle. 

 A raspberry or a mulberry might be called a compound 

 fruit, because each little division of the berry is a separate 

 fruit, containing a seed ; as a matter of fact, each division of 

 the mulberry is a false fruit because the juicy part is developed 

 from the sepals. A blackberry is like a raspberry, excepting 

 that the end of the pedicel also becomes soft and juicy and 

 forms part of the berry that we eat. It is plain that fruits, 

 whether true or false, can be borne only by angiosperms. 



FIG. 1 66. A lengthwise 

 section through an apple; 

 a, tips of the sepals ; b, the 

 part developed from the 

 ovary (the "core"); c, a 

 seed; d, line showing the 

 course of a vascular bundle ; 

 e, the pedicel. 



