FRUITS 261 
seeds or kernels do you find in the dehiscent pod? How 
many in the indehiscent one? Would it be of any advan- 
tage for a one-seeded pod to open? Remove the kernel 
from the indehiscent fruit; has it any covering besides the 
shell? Which is the pericarp, and which the seed coat? 
295. The nut is easily recognized by its hard, bony cover- 
ing, containing usually, when mature, a single large seed that 
fills the interior. Care should be taken not to confound with 
true nuts, large bony seeds, like those of the buckeye, horse- 
FES 
PII: 
7A 
377° 
379 
Fias. 376, 377. — Nut of the pecan Fics. 378, 379.—Nutlike seeds: 
tree : 376, exterior ; 377, cross section. 378, horse-chestnut ; 379, seed of the 
‘ fetid sterculia. 
chestnut, date, and the Brazil nut sold in the markets. In 
the true nut, the hard covering is the seed vessel, or pericarp, 
and not a part of the seed itself, though it often adheres to it 
so closely as to seem so. In bony seeds, like those of the horse- 
chestnut and persimmon, the hard covering is the outer seed 
coat. The distinction is not always easy to make out unless 
the seed can be examined while still attached to the placenta 
of the fruit. 
296. The akene, of which we have 
examples in the tailed fruit of the 
clematis, the tiny pits on the straw- 
berry, and the so-called seeds of the 
thistle, dandelion, and sunflower, is a 
small, dry, one-seeded, indehiscent 
fruit, so like a naked seed that it is 
generally taken for one by persons not ___ Frcs. 380, 381.— Akenes 
: . . (magnified): 380, of buck- 
acquainted with botany. It is the wheat; 381, of cinquefoil. 
