A NG I OS PER MS. ^07 



swelling out and becoming fleshy, and bearing on its surface the true small fruits. In 

 the 'hip' of the rose the hollow urn-shaped flower-stalk (again the receptacle) encloses 

 the separate ripe fruits in the form of a red or yellow succulent envelope. The apple 

 is also in the same sense a pseudocarp ; and the mulberry results from a whole spike 

 of flowers, the perianth-leaves of each separate flower swelling and becoming fleshy and 

 enclosing the small dry fruit. In the fig the hollowed-out stalk of the whole inflor- 

 escence forms the pseudocarp, bearing the fruits inside. 



Starting from the definition that a fruit is always the product of a single ripe ovary, 

 it follows that several fruits may arise from one flower, whenever, namely, there is more 

 than one monocarpellary ovary in the flower; in other words, when the flower is poly- 

 carpellary. The ripe gynaeceum has in such cases been termed a multiple fruit, but it 

 would be much better to apply to it the term Syncarp. Thus, for example, the small 

 fruits resulting from the flower of Ranunculus or Clematis or the larger ones from the 

 flower of Paeonia or Helleborus, form together a syncarp. Of a similar character is the 

 blackberry, consisting of a number of drupe-like fruits, the product of a single flower. 

 The fleshy receptacle of the rose-hip again encloses a syncarp, but the separate fruits 

 constituting it are in this case dry and not fleshy. The syncarp must not be confounded 

 with the pseudocarp resulting from an entire inflorescence, as in the cases of the mul- 

 berry and fig already named, or the pine-apple, or Benthamia fragifera. 



The single multilocular ovary of a flower may undergo transformation so as to pro- 

 duce two or more parts, each containing seeds, and appearing like separate fruits, and 

 hence termed Mericarps, while the whole fruit is called a Schi%ocarp. This separation 

 may take place at a very early period in the process of the formation of the fruit ; as in 

 Tropaeolum, where each loculus, enclosing a single seed, becomes rounded and at length 

 entirely separated from the others as a closed mericarp ; and in Borragineae and 

 Labiata:, where each of the two carpels produces two one-seeded chambers, all four 

 becoming at length completely separated, and surrounding the style as distinct mericarps 

 (here called Carceruli) ; or the separation only takes place by the splitting and rupture of 

 certain plates of tissue in the fully ripe fruit (as in Umbelliferae and Acer), then termed 

 a Cremocarp, where the fruit breaks up into two one-seeded halves or mericarps by the 

 splitting of the dissepiment or 'carpophore' along its length. The quinquilocular fruit 

 of Geranium splits up in the same manner into five one-seeded mericarps. 



True single fruits are in general unilocular or multilocular, according as the ovary 

 was divided or not. But the unilocular ovary may produce a multilocular fruit by 

 spurious dissepiments, /.f. such as cannot be considered as the reflexed margins of the 

 carpels ; and the loculi of such a fruit may lie either one above another or side by side. 

 The compartments, for example, of the legume (lomentum) of some Papilionaceae and 

 of Cassia Jistula lie one over another, while the two spurious loculi of the legume of 

 Astragalus lie side by side. A multilocular ovary may, 'vice 'versa, produce a unilocular 

 fruit by the suppression of one or more loculi, as in the oak and lime. A classification 

 of fruits into monocarpellary and polycarpellary cannot therefore be carried out as it 

 can be in ovaries ; the terms having now a different application. 



The wall of the ovary becomes the wall of the fruit or Pericarp. If sufficiently thick, 

 it can generally be divided into two or three layers, the tissue of which is developed 

 differently ; the outer one, often nothing but the epidermis, is then called the Epicarp, 

 and the inner one the Endocarp. If another one lies between these, it is called the 

 Mesocarp, or when it possesses a fleshy character, the Sarcocarp. 



Using the nomenclature which has now been described, we may classify all true 

 fruits into two principal sections, and each of these again into subdivisions, according to 

 whether the pericarp consists, when the fruit is ripe, of succulent fleshy layers or not, 

 and whether the fruit dehisces in order to allow the escape of the seeds which become 

 detached from the placentae, or not; viz. — 



