104 Principles of Plant Culture. 



Section XI. The Fruit and the Seed. 



155. The Fruit, as the term is used in botany, is 

 the mature ovary with its contents and adherent parts; 

 it may be hard and dry, as in the wheat and bean, or 

 soft and pulpy, as in the apple and melon. But in com- 

 mon language the term fruit is limited to the pulpy and 

 juicy part of certain plants that contains or supports 

 the seed or seeds or that is an after development of the 

 flower. To avoid explaining botanical terms, we use 

 the word in the latter sense. In this sense, the fruit 

 serves the plant by attracting animals that can assist in 

 disseminating the seed. 



The seed, as we have seen, is the fecundated and ma- 

 ture ovule (144), and its normal office is reproduc- 

 tion (16). 



156. The Fruit Rarely Develops Without Fecunda,- 

 tion of the germ cell of the ovule (149). Varieties of 

 the apple and pear have appeared, however, in which 

 the pulp develops without seeds. The fruit of the ba- 

 nana is almost invariably seedless. The cucumber, grape, 

 orange and fig sometimes develop their fruit without 

 fecundation of the germ cell. These instances are all 

 exceptions to the general rule. 



157. Seed Production Exhausts the Plant far more 

 than other plant processes. The seed prepares little 

 or no food, while it removes from other parts of the 

 plant a comparatively large amount of prepared food, 

 which it stores up in a concentrated form as a food sup- 

 ply for the embryo (54). Many plants (all annuals 

 and biennials) ar« killed the first time they are permit- 



