CHAPTER VII. 



— + — 



OP THE MATURATION OF THE FRUIT. 



CHAlfGES IT TJlTDEa&OES. — ^IS FED BT BKANCHES ITPOlir OEGANIZABLE MATTER 



I'TJENISHED BT IBATES. PHYSIOLOGICAL ITSE OF THE FBTTIT. — NATtTEE 



OF SBCEETIONS. THE CHANGES THEY TrNDEEGO. — ^EFFECT OF HEAT. 



OF SUNLIGHT. — OP -WATEE. — SEEDS. — OEIGIIt'oF THBIE FOOD. — CATTSB 



OF THEla LONGETITY. — OF THEIE DESTEITCTIOISr. DIFFESENCE IN 



THEIB TIGOTTE. 



After the fertilization of the seed has taken effect, the 

 pistil by itself, or the pistil and surrounding parts, go on 

 growing ; alter their appearance, as well as size ; acquire new 

 qualities of colour, texture, flavour, &c. ; and become the fruit. 



A flower being a kind of branch, as has been already shown 

 (see page 83), and the fruit being the advanced stage of a flower, it 

 follows that a fruit is also a kind of branch. It has originally 

 the same organic connexion with the plant as other branches, 

 and like them requires to be supplied with food, in the 

 absence of which it perishes or languishes. 



It may be conceived that, as the fruit is an altered state of a 

 leaf, its physiological action will resemble that of a leaf, in pro- 

 portion as it retains its organic similitude ; and this is found to 

 happen, a fruit decomposing carbonic acid, &c., under the 

 influence of light, so long as it retains its original green 

 foliaceous character. In the Pea, for example, whose pod is 

 green until it begins to die, the action is always similar to that 

 of a leaf, but in the Peach, whose texture becomes pulpy and 

 unlike that of a leaf, the physiological action eventually ceases 

 to be that of the latter organ. 



But although a fruit has, like a leaf, the power of forming 

 secretions by elaborating the sap which is attracted into it, yet 



