THE FRUIT. 205 



pericarp. The fruit of the raspberry and blackberry is an 

 aggregate of little drupes borne on a common receptacle. 



The Bacca, or berry. This Is % fleshy, compound fruit, 

 which is pulpy throughout. This name usually distinguishes 

 such fruits as the gooseberry and currant, in which the calyx 

 is adherent to the ovary and the parietal placentas. The seeds 

 are at first attached to the placentas, but as the fruit ripens 

 they become detached from the placentas, which finally form 

 that pulp which fills the interior of the berry and in which the 

 seeds are imbedded. The term berry is in general applied to 

 all pulpy fruits. 



The principal varieties of the dehiscent pericarp are — 



1. The follicle (folliculus, a little bag.) This is an unilo- 

 cular fruit, opening longitudinally by a single suture, the ven- 

 tral, into one valve, which represents an open carpellary leaf. 

 The seeds are attached to a simple sutural, or bi-partite pla- 

 centa, and sometimes become free at the moment the valves 

 separate. Follicles are very seldom solitary fruits. They are 

 usually aggregated on a short receptacle, and form a verticil, as 

 in the Columbine, 



2. The legume or pod (Legumen, pulse), is a dry fruit, 

 bi-valve, opening at the same time by the ventral and dorsal 

 suture, and bearing its seeds on the former. In the bladder 

 senna (Colutea arborescens), the legume is inflated, and retains 

 its leaf-like character. Fig. 90 is a lomentaceous variety of 

 the legume to which reference has been already made, and 

 which breaks up at the constrictions. This fruit belongs to 

 all the family of the Leguminosas of which it forms the prin- 

 cipal character. Examples — the pea, bean, and the acacia. 



3. The capsule {capsula, a little chest.) This is a general 

 name for all dry and dehiscent fruits which open by valves or 



18* 



