136 



FLOWER-LAND. 



apples you have eaten, I expect you know what it 

 looks like very well. In the middle are the seeds, 

 enclosed in the scaly carpels ; then all round them is 

 the tube of the calyx, or top of the flower stalk, which 

 has swollen into the juicy part which in some apples 

 is so good to eat. At the top of the apple you can 

 see its dry and withered calyx (Fig. 25, p. 28). The 

 apple then is not only the ripened pistil, but some 

 other part of the flower is joined with it the ripe 

 pistil containing the seeds, that is, the true fruit, being 

 enclosed in the swollen calyx tube or top of the flower 

 stalk. That is why the apple is called a pseudocarp. 

 This joining of other parts of the flower to the ripe 

 pistil happens in many different ways. Have you 



noticed in the strawberry 

 the little brownish things 

 which are upon it ? People 

 often think they are the 

 seeds ; but they are the true 

 fruits, that is, the ripened 

 ovaries containing the 

 seed ; and they are upon 

 the swollen fleshy part 

 which we like to eat ; the 

 whole making up a pseu- 

 docarp or spurious fruit 

 (Fig. 115). 



Fig. 115-Strawberries. j fl ^ ^ Qf the ^ 



rose, on the other hand, the true fruits are the hard, 

 hairy little things which are inside the swollen calyx 



