449 MORPHOLOGY. 



3. Lastly, the various kinds of fruits are to be enumerated. 



These matters, for the most part, require only to be generally men- 

 tioned and collected together here, since everything of importance 

 relating to them has already been mentioned in the paragraphs (160 

 175.). 



1. Of the individual Parts of the Fruit. 



178. The pericarp is the transformed germen : sometimes it is 

 united with the other persistent parts of the pistil, style, and 

 stigma. The latter are seldom of particular importance ; and all 

 that need now be said of them is that they have been retained 

 up to this epoch (as in Papaver), or they have become more de- 

 veloped (as in Pulsatilla). The forms of the pericarp are exceed- 

 ingly diversified, but admit of no general definition ; they frequently 

 exhibit hairs, prickles, protuberances, and membranous expansions 

 (alee), prominent ribs (costce or juga\ and pits in their inter- 

 spaces (vallecul(R\ &c. The pericarp essentially determines the 

 varied appearances of the fruit, by its diversity of structure. It 

 has already been mentioned in what various manners the paren- 

 chyma of the germen is developed. In the simplest cases, we find 

 in the mature pericarp only the epidermis of both surfaces, and 

 between these an uniform layer of parenchyma, without vascular 

 bundles (as in the lower Aracece), or traversed by a few simple 

 bundles. In other cases only the epidermis of the external surface 

 is perceptible, whilst the entire parenchyma, with the epidermis of 

 the inner surface, is succulent or fleshy (as in Atropa} ; or it may 

 be, that under the epidermis of the outer surface some layers of 

 cellular tissue are woody, whilst the underlying are fleshy ; in both 

 cases very frequently passing without determined boundary into 

 the pulp. 



In many other cases four layers are distinctly discernible, which 

 have been already characterised ; and since the time of DeCandolle 

 (altogether misunderstanding L. C. Richard, the originator of the 

 division) they have been named, counting from without inward, 

 epicarp, mesocarp, (also sarcocarp, or flesh, caro) ; and the two inner 

 undistinguished coats, the endocarp. Those varieties of structure 

 in the fruit are most important which cause the peculiar solutions 

 of the continuity in the fully mature condition. Hence we obtain 

 two comprehensive classes of fruits, according as their construction 

 causes a separation into individual parts or not. The latter may 

 be termed the berry-like, and the former the capsular. The cap- 

 sular are again divided into two groups, according as the pericarp 

 either opens and suffers the seed to escape capsules with their 

 portions called valves, or separates into individual parts, which do 

 no not again open, but firmly enclose the seed splitting fruits 

 (schizocarps), and their parts called mericarps. The berry-like 

 fruits are also subdivided into three groups, according as the inner 



