490 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, V'd, X. 



layers are harder as in the citron and gourd (the Jatter sometimes 

 called a pepo].^^* 



Professor Sydney H. Vines, of Oxford, gives the following descrip- 

 tion of the herrif (bacca)t' — " The endocarp is soft and juicy, as well as 

 the mesocarp, so that the seeds are imbedded in the pericarp : there 

 may be one seed only as in the date, or many, as in the gourd, 

 currant and grape : the fruit may have one loculus, as in the grape 

 and the gourd, or several loculi, as in the orange : and further it. mar/ 

 he superior, as in the grape, orange and lemon ; or inferior, as in 

 the currant^ the gooseherry and the gourd. ^^ (The italics are mine. — 

 K. R. K.). If this description is taken as our guide, as we should, con- 

 sidering that it is the Ijest and most aecm-ate description I have yet 

 seen in a student's text-book, the fruit of the plant I am . now 

 describing may be safely termed an inferior berry. 



Professor A. Kerner von Marilaun, of the Umversity of Vienna, in 

 his excellent work entitled the *' Natural History of Plants," translated 

 into English by Professor F. W. Oliver, of University College, 

 London (Vol. II, p. 427, 1895, London), describes the herry as 

 follows :— " When the seed-case derived from the pistil becomes alto- 

 gether fleshy and succulent, the fruit is termed herry. From 

 inferior pistils arise inferior berries. From superior pistils superior 

 berries." This description may be usefully read side by side with 

 that of Professor Vines. ' 



Gaertner in his description of the 2:>epo J divides the fruit into iyvo 

 classes :— *" 



(1) SoUdi, i.e., solid ; having a single cavity. In this class he 

 includes " Bryonia" which is one of the former generic names of 

 the plant I am now describing as Corallocarpus epigcea ; Cucumis^ 

 Cucurhita, and Trichosantlie are some of the other genera included 

 by Gaertner under this class. 



(2) Can, i.e., hoUoio ; under this head he includes Momordica 

 cliarantia. 



Having so far dwelt on the difficulties of the student of botany in 

 giving an exact name to the kind of fruit seen in the plant I am 



'*■ P. 153, " Text Book of Structural and Physiological Eotany," translated by A. Vr, 

 Bennett, 1877, London, 

 t " A Student's Test Book of Botany," London^ 1895, p. 5S2. 

 X p. XCVII, Yol, I, "De Fructibus et Seminibus Plautraum" LiijsiaE, 1801. 



