113 PUNICA GRANATUM 



upper of 5 8 cells, ovules very numerous, sessile, covering the 

 whole surface of the placentas which in the cells of the lower tier 

 are axile, and in those of the upper tier parietal ; style tapering ; 

 stigma simple, capitate. Fruit as large as an orange, 2J 3 

 inches or more in diameter, hard, depressed-globose, bluntly 

 5 8 angled over the position of the dissepiments, abruptly con- 

 tracted at the top into a short neck terminated by the thick 

 persistent calyx-lobes and containing the withered stamens; 

 pericarp thin, nearly smooth, tough, yellow or reddish, cavity 

 irregularly divided below the middle into two stories by a thin, 

 somewhat conical diaphragm extending from the centre to the 

 sides, upper story divided into 5 8 irregular cells by thin, tough 

 membranous dissepiments, lower story often also with one or more 

 vertical partitions. Seeds very numerous, entirely filling the 

 fruit, attached in the upper cells on all sides of thick, strong, 

 spongy placentas, which project from the wall, but do not extend 

 to the top or bottom of the cells, and in the lower cell or cells 

 either all over the floor of the fruit or on several irregular pro- 

 jecting placentas; each seed elongated, about \ an inch long, 

 variously polygonal from pressure, chiefly composed of a thick, 

 translucent, pink, juicy coating, inner coat hard, white ; embryo 

 straight, radicle very short, cotyledons foliaceous, convolute; no 

 endosperm. 



Habitat. As in the case of other plants cultivated from remote 

 antiquity the native country of the Pomegranate is somewhat uncer- 

 tain. It is, however, generally considered native in North Western 

 India, Southern Persia, and perhaps Palestine, and to have been 

 introduced at a distant period into the Mediterranean countries 

 of Europe and Northern Africa, in which latter district, as its 

 name indicates, it was once considered indigenous : it was also 

 brought to China in very ancient times from Western Asia. At 

 the present day this tree is spread over all the warmer and 

 temperate countries of the globe ; and in this country, into which 

 it was introduced before the middle of the 16th century, it is much 

 cultivated as an ornamental shrub for the sake of its very hand- 

 some flowers which are abundantly produced from June to 



