135 



CHAPTER XI. 



FRUIT AND SEED. 



After fertilisation a change takes place in the ovary ; it enlarges 

 and changes very much in appearance, forming the fruit. 

 Botanically the fruit is the ripened ovary. Many so-called 

 fruits, however, have in addition to the ovary some other part 

 of the flower attached. Thus, in the Straw- 

 berry and Apple, the fleshy edible part is the 

 enlarged receptacle or thalamus, the pips of 

 the Strawberry and the core of the Apple 

 being the true fruits. In these cases the term 

 pseudocarp is applied. Sometimes the whole 

 inflorescence will be matured into a single 

 fruit-like mass, when the term syncaip is y\q. 256.— Multiple 

 used j whilst if the bracts or any other part '^^^°^^'^ °^ *' 

 of the floral organs are added in so as to 

 produce a pseudocarp, as in the Pineapple and Mulberry, the 

 term pseudosyncarp is employed (fig. 256). 



(Care must be taken not to confound the terms syncarp and 

 syncarpous pistil or fruit; the latter term being, as we have seen, 

 restricted to those ovaries and fruits where the carpels are 

 united together, whilst the former term is used for matured in- 

 florescences even if the pistil be apocarpous.) 



The walls of the ovary consist of three layers : hence in the 

 fruit we find three layers present — the outer or epicarp, the 

 middle or mesocarp, and the inner or endocarp. Often these 

 three layers cannot easily be distinguished from one another ; 

 at other times they are very evident. The number of cavities 

 or loculi in the fruit generally corresponds to that in the ovary; 

 sometimes, however, some of the partitions disappear, so that 

 the fruit possesses fewer loculi than the ovary. 



