38 FAMILIAR TREES 
ask the raison d’étre of this rosy-cheeked, succulent 
and juicy fruit, we are again met by some of the most 
interesting problems of modern botany. The act of 
fertilisatior. or impregnation seems to have an effect 
comparable to that of the puncture of a gall-fly in 
determining the flow of nutriment in the direction of 
the fertilised seeds and their enclosing ovary: the 
petals and stamens wither and fall; and in nearly 
every fruit enlargement of the ovary, and often of 
some adjacent structures, takes place. A succu- 
lent fruit is thus produced, often having some gay 
autumn tint, red, gold, or purple, attractive to the 
bird-world by its colour, and by its lusciousness 
when ripe. In the Apple the five ovaries are not at 
first united, but are subsequently overgrown and 
completely joined by the development of the so-called 
“calyx-tube,” an outgrowth from the flower-stalk, 
which shuts in the parchment-like core, and carries 
up with it the withered calyx-leaves to form a 
crown on the summit of the fruit. 
The ripe Apple falling to the ground, reminding us 
in its fall of the somewhat apocryphal tale of Newton 
and the discovery of gravitation, must often have 
become the prey of the wild boars, deer, and cattle of 
the primeval forests of Europe. The Crab-tree, in 
fact, owes its preservation in our forests to protective 
regulations for the sake of the deer. Its firm skin 
may for some time keep the decaying pulp together 
so as to manure the germinating seed ; and the tough 
dark brown skin of the seed itself offers such resist- 
ance both to damp and to the digestive process as 
to secure to it a fair chance of sprouting in duc 
