318 



THE FRUIT. 



are little drupes ; also the cone-like fleshy fruit of Magnolia, where 

 the component carpels are a sort of drupaceous follicles, at length 

 opening on the back and summit ; and the dry cone of the Tulip-tree, 

 where each carpel forms a sort of samara. None of these aggregate 

 fruits have special names in ordinary use. In descriptive botany it 

 is sufficient to state the kind of fruit the carpels themselves form, 

 and their mode or degree of aggregation. 



623. Accessory or Anthocarpons Fruits are those of which the most 



conspicuous portion, although often appearing like a pericarp, neither 

 belongs to the pistil nor is organically united with it. The apparent 

 berry of Gaultheria, in which a succulent free calyx invests a dry 

 pod and appears to form the real fruit (Fig. 912-914) has already 

 been adverted to (583) ; and the calyx of Shepherdia is similar, 

 forming what appears to be the sarcocarp of a drupe, although it is 

 really free from the achenium it encloses. So, also, the apparent 

 achenium or nut of Mirabilis, or Four-o'clock, is the thickened and 

 indurated base of the tube of a free calyx, which contracts at the 

 apex and encloses the trae pericarp as a utricle or thin achenium, 

 but does not cohere with it. The rose-hip, a hollow calyx-tube 

 lined with a hollow receptacle (Fig. 429), and the strawberry (Fig. 

 428, 558, 559), consisting of a conical enlarged receptacle bearing 

 many minute achenia, may also be regarded as forms of anthocar- 

 pons fruit. 



624. Multiple or Collective Fruits are those which result from the 

 aggregation of several flowers into one mass. The simplest of these 

 are those of the Partridge-Berry (Mitchella) and of some species of 

 Honeysuckle (Fig. 859), consisting of the ovaries of two blossoms 

 united into one double berry. The more usual sorts are such as the 

 pine-apple, mulberry, and the fig. These are, in fact, dense forms 

 of inflorescence, with the fruits or floral envelopes matted together 

 or coherent with each other ; and all or some of the parts become 

 succulent. The grains of the mulberry (Fig. 593, 594) are not the 

 ovaries of a single flower, like those of the blackberry which it super- 

 ficially resembles (Fig. 5G4), but belong to as many separate flow- 

 ers ; and the pulp of these pertains to the floral envelopes instead of 

 the pericarp. So that the mulberry is an anthocarpons (623) as 

 well as a multiple fruit. The pine-apple is very similar ; only the 

 ovaries or pericarps never ripen any seeds, but all are blended, with 

 the floral envelopes, the bracts, and the axis of the stem they thickly 

 cover, into one fleshy and juicy mass. The fig (Fig. 590 -592) 



