212 The Golden Rule for Flowers 



wild ; and this specimen, being the only one of its kind 

 in the neighbourhood, was barren for years. But at 

 last, one year, the young dates, instead of shrivelling 

 as usual, remained on the tree and grew to their 

 proper size ; and then it was found that a date tree 

 had flowered that same year for the first time at Brin- 

 disi, some forty odd miles away, and had borne pollen- 

 blossoms. This pollen, therefore, had no doubt been 

 carried by the wind to the tree at Otranto. 



The case of another solitary date tree, growing at 

 Martinique, in the West Indies, is also interesting, 

 though in another way. For this tree bore eatable 

 fruit without being fertilized, but though the dates 

 might be eaten the stones would not grow, for the 

 seeds were imperfect, and contained no germ. 



The fruit of a plant, botanically speaking, is the 

 ripened pistil, or rather that part of the pistil which 

 contains the ovules. Sometimes, as in the case of the 

 various kinds of corn, it is the ripened ovules, the 

 'ieeds, which are the eatable part of the fruit, the ovary 

 in which they are contained being a mere husk. In 

 the various gourds, on the other hand, the ovary itself 

 grows enormously and becomes fleshy. So, too, with 

 apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums and oranges, 

 the swollen, ripened ovary containing the seed is the 

 part best worth eating ; and it has, therefore, been the 

 gardeners' object to increase its size and improve its 

 flavour. In the almond, the ovary remains a mere 

 woolly skin without edible flesh ; in the horse-chestnut 

 it is a tough, thick and prickly skin, equally uneatable ; 

 in the filbert and beech-nut it is a hard shell ; and in 

 the coco - nut it consists of fibre. Whether husk, 



