8-2 



HOW PLANTS ARE PROPAGATED. 



y^jWlx^ 



248. Multiple Fruits are masses of simple or accessory fruits belonging to differ, 

 ent flowers, all compacted together. Mulberries (Fig. i2o) are of this sort. They 

 look like blackberries, but each grain belongs to a separate 

 flower ; and the eatable pulp is not even the seed-vessel of that, 

 but is a loose calyx grown pulpy, just like that of Checker- 

 berry, and surrounding an akene, which is generally taken for a 

 seed. The pine-apple is much like a mulberry on a large scale. 

 A fig is a multiple fruit, being a hollow flower-stalk grown pulpy, 

 the inside lined by a great number of minute flowers. 



249. So, under the name of fruit very different things are 

 eaten. In figs it is a hollow flower-stalk ; in pine-apples and 

 ^'^ mulberries, clusters of flower-leaves, as 



Mulberry. ' 



well as the stalk they cover ; in straw- 

 berries, the receptacle of a flower; in blackberries, the 

 same, though smaller, and a cluster of little stone-fruits 

 that cover it ; in raspberries, the little stone-fruits in a 

 cluster, without the receptacle. In checkerberries, quinces, 

 and (as to all but the core) apples and pears, we eat a 

 fleshy enlarged calyx ; in peaches and other stone-fruits, 

 the outer part of a seed-vessel ; in grapes, gooseberries, 

 blueberries, and cranberries, the whole 

 seed-vessel, grown rich and pulpy. 



250. The Cone of Pine (Fig. 224) and 

 the like is a sort of multiple fruit. Each 

 scale is a whole pistillate flower, con- 

 sisting of an open pistil leaf, ripened, and 

 bearing on its upper face one or two naked seeds, — as explained at the end of the last 

 section (218, 219). Fig. 22.5 shows the upper side of one of the thick scales taken 

 off, bearing one seed ; the other, removed, is shown, with its wing, in Fig. 226. 



§ 2. See(k. 



'252. A Seed is an ovule fertilized and matured, and with a germ or embryo 

 formed in it. 



253. In the account of the growth of plants from the seed, at the beginning of 

 the book (Chapter I. Section I.), seeds have already been considered sufficiently 



224 

 Pitch-pine Cone. 



