150 



AZAROLE. CRAT^GUS AzaROLUS, L. (ROSACEA). 



This fruit is usually two-seeded, and when fully ripe is said 

 to have an agreeable taste. It is esteemed in Italy and the Levant, 

 where it is served at dessert. It is said to be much cultivated'. 

 The fruit is cherry size, and is a pome resembling a very small 

 pear. Duhamel/ says there are numerous varieties, the small 

 yellow fruited, the small red fruited, and the large deep red 

 fruiting. Noisette^ mentions as varieties the fruit longes, rouges 

 dindijauues, 



Athenaeus^ a Greek author of the second and third century, 

 speaks of the Azarole as sweet and seedless. Darwin- mentions 

 this plant amongst those in which the best varieties bear none or 

 few seed. 



4 



Banana. Musa, sp. (Musace^). 



The banana is a prominent instance of a seedless fruit. The 

 fruit is composed' of three adherent carpels surrounded by the 

 external coat of the ovarium. There are very many varieties. 

 Rumphius^ says there are as many different kinds as there are of 

 apples and pears in Europe. There are no fewer than thirty 

 varieties cultivated by the natives of Tahiti, according to EUis^, 

 besides twenty kinds, very large and serviceable that grow wild in 

 the mountains. In Feejee, Wilkes^ mentions five or six kinds 

 besides the wild form, as cultivated. In India, Mueller^ says 

 about fifty distinct kinds are grown, and Firminger^" enumerates 

 twenty*one sorts under five species. Carey'', however, says the 

 cultivated varieties are infinite. Simmonds'^ estimates twenty 

 varieties in Tenasserim, ten in Ceylon and thirty in Burmah. 



X Bot. Reposit. ix. pi. 579. 



2Duhainel du Monceau, arb. fruit, 1768, i. 325, fig. p. 334 



3 Man. du Jard. 1829, 444. 



4Sprengel. Hist. Rei Herb. i. 25. 



5 Darwin, An. and PL ii. 208. 



6Rumph. Amb. v. p. 126, t. 60. 



7 Polynesian Researches, i. 372. 



8 U. S, Ex. Exp. ill. 333, 



9 Mueller. Sel. PL 136. 

 loGard. in India, 



H Hort. Bengal. t8. 

 i2Trop. Agr. 457. 



i 



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