THE LIFE -HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



305 



A calyx in such a position would be wholly anoma- 

 lous, were it not readily expUcahle by the cause 

 just mentioned. In the Strawberry (Fig. 94) the 

 true fruit consist of the little 

 pips or carpels, which bestrew < 



the surface, or ai'e partly em- 

 bedded in the top of the flower- 

 stalk, "thalamus," or "recep- 

 tacle," as it is indifferently 

 called, and in which, after 



Fii 



'iff. 95.— Baspberry, allowing 

 Sue persistent calyx and the 

 numerons small fleshy fruits 

 aggregated on the dry floral 



A Mulberry, a Pine-apple, or Fig, is not one fruit, it 

 is not the ripe state of any one flower, but it is 

 an aggregation of several flowers and other con- 

 stituent parts (Figs. 96, 97) into 

 one fleshy mass. Such fruits 

 are like "catkins," or inflores- 

 cences in which aU the flowers 

 have become fused into one 

 succulent mass. 



The efiect of all these varia- 



rig. 96.— A section through a Fig. The 

 flower-stalk expands to form a top-shaped 

 cavity, from line sides of which the teue 

 fruits proceed- 



Fig. 97. — Mulberry. The 

 " fruit '* is here composed of 

 a number of originally sepa- 

 rate ^lowers, all pajts of which 

 have become more or less 

 fleshy, and ultimately com- 

 bined in one mass. 



fertilisation, the constituent 

 cells swell and multiply, and 

 flll themselves with savoury 

 juices of their own manu- 

 facture. In the Bramble or 

 the Raspberry (Fig. 95) the 

 case is altogether different. 

 Here each little fleshy pip 

 represents an entire carpel, 

 springing, not from a fleshy, 

 but from a dry receptacle. 

 We eat the luscious recep- 

 tacle of the Strawberry, but 

 we throw away the corre- 

 sponding part in the Rasp- 

 berry. "We swallow the pips 

 of the Strawberry, because 

 we cannot avoid doing so, 

 but if we could reject them 

 we should do so ; while in 

 the Raspberry we eat them 

 from choice. The pips of the 

 latter fruit, in fact, are miniature stone fruits (drupes) . 

 The fruit in aU the cases hitherto mentioned has 

 consisted of the ripened carpels of one flower, with 

 or without the addition of other parts of that flower. 

 But other fruits are of a more complex character. 

 68 



Fig. 98. — Pod of 

 Wallflower hurst- 

 ing by two valves. 



tions is seen in the disper- 

 sion of the seed. Where 

 the " fruits " are light and 

 membranous they are wafted 

 away by the wind; where 

 they are bony they fall to 

 the ground and slowly rot, 

 or they split into several 

 pieces (Figs. 98, 99), and 

 thus liberate the seed ; while 

 in the case of the fleshy 

 fruits the colour, perfume, 

 flavour, are aU so many 

 allurements to birds or in- 

 sects, which here, as in the 

 process of fertilisation, in 

 the pursuit of their own 

 selfish aims, are made to 

 fulfil an unconscious but 

 most important part in the 

 great scheme of Nature. 

 Structurally, the ripening 

 of the fruit consists either in the shrivelhng of the 

 fruit from the drying up of the water, in its harden- 

 ing from the deposition of woody materials in the 

 constituent ceUs, or in its increased succulence from 

 the multipUcation of the cellular components. 



Fig. 99. — Pod of Tulip 

 bursting into three 

 pieces. 



