FRUIT. 



81 



244. Aggregated Fruits are close clusters of simple fruits all of the same flower. 

 The raspberry and the blackberry are good examples. In these, each grain is a 

 drupelet or stone-fruit, like a cherry or peach on a very small scale. ^ 



245. Accessory Fruits are those in which the flesh or conspicuous part belongs to 

 some accessory (i. e. added or altered) part, separate from the seed-vessel. So that 

 what we eat as the fruit is not the fruit at all in a stiict botanic^ sense, but a calyx, 

 receptacle, or something else which surrounds or 



accompanies it. Our common checkerberry is a 

 simple illustration. Here the so-called berry is a 

 free or separate calyx, which after flowering be- 

 comes thick and fleshy, and encloses the true seed- 

 vessel, as a small pod within. Fig. 218 shows the 

 young pod, partly covered by the loose calyx. 



Fig. 219 is the ripe checkerberry, cut through the middle lengthwise, the calyx now 

 thick, juicy, and eatable, and enlarged so as to enclose the small, dry pod. 



246. A Rose-hip (Fig. 220) is a kind of accessory fruit, looking like a pear or a 



haw. But it consists of the tube of the calyx, lined 

 by a hollow receptacle, which bears the real fruits, 

 or seed-vessels, in the form of bony akenes. Fig. 

 221, a rose-hip when in flower, cut through length- 

 wise, shows the whole plan of it : the pistils are seen 

 attached to the sides of the urn-shaped receptacle, 

 and their styles, tipped with the stigmas, project a 

 little from the cavity, near the 

 stamens, which are borne on 

 the rim of the deep cup. 



247. A Strawherry is an ac- 

 cessory fruit of a different shape. Fig. 222 is a forming one, 

 at flowering time, divided lengthwise : below is a part of the 

 calyx ; above this, a large oval or conical receptacle, its whole 

 surface covered with little pistils. In ripening this grows 

 vastly larger, and becomes juicy and delicious. So that, in fact, what is called a 

 berry is only the receptacle of the flower, or the end of the flower-stalk, grown very 

 lar"-e and juicy, and not a seed-vessel at all, but bearing plenty of one-seeded dry 

 seed-vessels (akenes, 229), so small that they are mistaken for seeds. 



Rose-hip. 



222, Young Strawberry. 



