180 



about seed in those references we have consulted'. A white kind 

 which in the East Indies has run wild, is said by Unger- to still 

 contain seeds in its fruit. Hughes^ in the Barbadoes mentions 

 the seed as being very small and almost kidney-shaped, as if he 

 had seen them. Rumphius notes a semi-wild pineapple In Am- 

 boina, bearing seeds, austere and rarely eaten. Arruda in Brazil 

 speaks of a pineapple with small seeds, for the most part abortive^. 



PiSTACIA. PiSTACIA VERA, L. (AnACARDIACE.^). 



J 



yields a 



1 Montiero, Angola, p. loi. Afzelius (for Sierra Leone) quoted by Sabine. 

 Hort» Trans, v. 461. Titford (Jamaica), Hort. Bot. Am. p. 54. 



2 U. S. PaU Off. Rept. 1889. 331. 



3 Hughes, Barb. 1750, p. 230. 



4 Roem-et Schult. 7, 12S4. 



5 U. S. Pat. Off. Rept. 1861, 533, notes. 



6 Duhamel du Monceau, arb. fruit, 176S. ii. no. 



7 Downing, Fruit, 1885, p. 949. 



8 An. and PI. i. 417. 



9 Hooker's Journ. of Bot. iii. 99. 



10 See Dr. Harris in Hovey's Mag,, viii. 247. 



^ 



V 



\ crop of fruit one year, followed always by a crop of blighted 



fruit. The latter is like the former in external appearance, but is 

 somewhat larger and quite destitute of kernel. 



Plum. Prunus domestica, L, (Rosace.^). 



A stoneless variety of the plum is described by Duhamel^ and 

 by Downing^, who says the fruit is small, the flesh greenish, 

 harsh, acid, and the kernel without any stone surrounding- As ^ 



Darwin says", the kernel lies in a rough cavity surrounded only 

 by the pulp. 



In the richest, sweetest large plums, it cannot have escaped 

 observation, that we have often the splitting of the stone within 

 the fruit, as in the peach. 



Pntniis Americana, Marsh., is subject in New Brunswick to 

 an anomalous form, which render it seedless and inedible^. I 

 have observed this occurrence in Maine, the seed swollen, pulp- 

 less, seedless and tasteless. Sometimes the remnant of an em- 

 bryo is to be found. This monstrosity seems more often to oc- 

 cur when the spring season is cold and rainy^°, and is perhaps due 

 to a fungus attack. 



4 



A 



T 



