CLUE TO THE HOMOLOGIES OF FRUITS 245 



It has first to be noticed that the loss of weight which the 

 seeds of these berries undergo in the moist fruit is but a small 

 proportion of the loss which they sustain when subsequently- 

 freed by decay of the berry and exposed to the air. If the 

 seed of Tamus communis loses 9 per cent, in the reddening 

 berry, its total loss of weight when dried in free air amounts 

 to about 46 per cent., as shown in the results tabulated below. 

 The seeds of Berberis, Passiflora, and of Arum maculatum, which 

 give the same indications, are there compared with it. One 

 can recall familiar instances of the shrinking, hardening, and 

 " browning " of seeds in fleshy fruits such as the Apple, the 

 Sapodilla, and the Star Apple ; but here, though the change is 

 evident to the eye, it is not easy to give a numerical value to 

 the difference without a carefully guarded comparison of the 

 average weight of the seeds in a large number of the full- 

 sized unripe and ripe fruits. As the green apple mellows, its 

 soft white seeds become smaller, harder, and brown in colour. 

 The same process is familiar in sapotaceous fruits like the 

 Sapodilla and the Star Apple {Achras Sapota and Chrysophyllum 

 Camito), where, as the fruit ripens, the soft white seeds become 

 hard and brown. 



In the following table the loss in weight of the seed in the 

 ripening berry is compared with the total loss when the berry 

 dries up. 



Changes in the Weight of Seeds of Berries during the 

 Ripening and Drying up of the Fruit. 



