94 



FRUIT. 



ticular cases, it will be necessary to define some terms used 

 in the description of fruit. 



111. The pericarp is the covering of the seed whatever 

 may be its form or dimensions. It includes the ovary and 

 whatever may be attached to it which goes to make up the seed 

 vessel. It varies in dimensions from the covering of the 

 minute seeds of grasses to the the large fleshy pericarps of 

 the Cucurbitacese, which sometimes attain to several feet in 

 diameter. Its composition is not less various, from the finest 

 and most delicate membranes to the coarsest and roughest of 

 vegetable productions, from the softest pulp to the hard, bony 

 covering of the kernel of the peach. 



The pericarp consists of three parts ; the epicarp, which is 

 the outer covering and corresponds to the skin ; the sarcocarp 

 is the middle portion which constitutes the flesh, and endocarp 

 or putamen the inner coat or shell. By the various modifi- 

 cations which these several parts undergo in the course of 

 development, most of the fruits, however widely they may dif- 

 fer in appearance, may be easily conceived to originate from 

 a common type. 



In the Peach, for example, the skin, which in many cases 

 may be easily removed, is undoubtedly the epicarpintts natu- 

 ral state ; the fleshy ])ortion which is eaten, is the sarcocarp, 

 which is ihe parenchymous portion of the leaf excessively 

 developed ; i\iQ stone of the peach is the endocarp remarkably 

 condensed and hardened. The Cherry and similar fruit are 

 reducible on the same principles. The Apple is a little dif- 

 ferently constructed ; the epicarp is in its natur vl state, but 

 the sarcocarp consists of the parenchymous portion of the 

 calyx and ovary united. By making a transverse section 

 of an apple the outlines of the ovary may be seen distin- 

 guished by points, which are the cords formed by the vessels 

 and woody fibre of the midrib of the leaves which compose 

 the carpels. The hard layer, which immediately surrounds 

 the, seed, is the endocarp, 



112. The fruit being the perfected ovary, it of course 

 ought to bear the mark of the style or stigma, and it is of 

 importance, that the student bear this in mind, as it vv ill often 

 enable him to distinguish seed from fruit, as there are many 

 examples which the common observer would call a seed, but 

 which in reality are fruits, consisting of pericarps and a seed 

 within it, as in the Umbelliferce and Compositae. 



There are cases in which suppression of ovules causes a 

 variation in the fruit from what might be expected from an 

 examination of the ovary in its early stage. If an ovary 



