AUTUMN FRUITS 271 



selves as examples. Lastly, there are berry- fruits in the 

 wide sense, where the seeds are embedded in pulp, as 

 in the case of gooseberry and currant and grape. 



Besides these so-called simple fruits, each of which 

 represents one seed-box or ovary, there are more difficult 

 compound fruits, such as a strawberry, which is a collection 

 of tiny nutlets embedded on the surface of the fleshy 

 apex of the flower-stalk; or a bramble-fruit, which is a 

 cluster of drupes ; or a rose-hip, which is a collection of 

 nutlets inside the fleshy apex of the flower-stalk turned 

 into a cup. There are others, still more compound, which 

 correspond to a whole inflorescence or group of flowers, 

 such as the fig, which is a collection of fruits within a 

 juicy flower-stalk. The pine-apple is another familiar 

 example ; it seems to be a collection of fleshy berries and 

 fleshy bracts. 



It may be noticed, too, that there are some very difficult 

 cases in regard to some of which the botanists themselves 

 are not always agreed. The fruit of the juniper seems to 

 be a reduced cone that has become fleshy ; in the yew 

 there seems to be a naked seed partly surrounded by a 

 fleshy seed-mantle or aril ; in the pomegranate the coats 

 of the seeds have become juicy ; the banana is, perhaps, a 

 long seedless berry ; the cucumber is a berry with a tough 

 epicarp ; the orange is a many-chambered berry with 

 juicy partition-walls and a leathery epicarp rich in oil 

 cavities ; and even the apple is often regarded as a berry. 



It is easy to make fun of " botanical conundrums " : 

 " Why is a strawberry not a berry, when a date is ? " But 

 while an understanding of fruits will not be helped by 

 pedantry, it is likely to be helped by precision. To see 

 things clearly is often the first condition of insight. There- 

 fore, it is profitable to delay for a little, puzzling over the 

 real nature of certain difficult fruits. Let us take in 



