56 



THE GARDENER'S ASSISTANT. 



we know as " sports " may originate. But this 

 is, of course, at present merely conjectural. 

 (See also chap, ix., p. 58.) 



The Fruit. 



Generally speaking the term fruit means the 

 ovary or pistil of any flower that is more or less 



modified subsequently to and consequently upon 

 fertilization. The fruit or pod of a Bean or a 

 Pea is thus merely the ripened ovary. 



In the course of ripening various changes 

 occur. Sometimes the outer portions become 

 soft and succulent, as in the Gooseberry or the 

 Grape. Such fruits are loosely called berries. 

 At other times the inner layers of the ovary 



2. 3. 



Fig. 68.— Chauges in the Protoplasm of the Cell-nucleus during its Division. 



1. The Nuclear Fibrils distributed through the whole Nucleus. 2. The broken-up Nuclear Fibrils arranged as the Nuclear Plate. 3. The 

 elements of the plate separating from one another. 4. The same elements forming two skeins at the poles of the Spindle. (After 

 Guignard.) Very highly magnified. 



become hard by the deposit of woody matter, 

 and a stone-fruit or drupe is the result, as in the 

 Plum or Cherry (fig. 69). In a third class of 

 examples the fruit as it ripens dries up, and even- 

 tually forms a case which cracks open or "de- 

 hisces " to set free the seeds. Such a fruit is 

 called a capsule. The capsule may, when ripe, 

 split longitudinally into a number of valves, 

 which separate to liberate the seeds, or exit for 

 those bodies may be provided for by small holes 

 or pores, as in the Snap- 

 dragon. If the capsule 

 have but two valves — 

 in other words, if it 

 consist only of a single 

 carpel splitting along 

 both edges — it is called 

 a legume, a familiar illus- 

 tration of which is af- 

 forded by the common 

 pea-pod, and which gives 

 the name Leguminos?e 

 to a large order of plants 



characterized by the possession of a fruit of this 

 nature. If the single carpel bursts along one 

 edge only it is called a follicle. Dry fruits which 

 do not open are spoken of as indehiscent, and 

 may roughly be called nuts. 



During the ripening process great changes 

 may occur in the other parts of the flower as 

 well as in the carpels themselves, to some of 

 which we must refer. Thus, in the case of the 

 Apple or Pear, the upper part of the peduncle or 

 flower-stalk, the receptacle in fact, becomes much 



Fig. 69.— Section through the Fruit 

 (Drupe) of a Plum, showing the 

 Epicarp ep or Skin, the Sarco- 

 carp sar or Flesh, the Endocarp 

 en or Stone. In the centre is the 

 solitary Seed or Kernel. 



enlarged, whilst the core, which is the true 

 fruit, is embedded in its fleshy substance. The 

 edible portion or pome of an Apple or Pear is 

 therefore not the fruit, though so called popu- 

 larly. 



In the Fig the true fruits are the minute pips 

 found in the interior of a swollen receptacle 

 analogous to that which forms the pome. In 

 the Strawberry the true fruits are the small pips 

 w T hich people generally consider to be seeds, the 

 edible portion is the enormously dilated recep- 

 tacle (fig. 59). In the Raspberry and Black- 

 berry the receptacle remains relatively small, 

 but the carpels develop into small succulent 

 drupes, like those of the Cherry, but differing 

 in size and in the fact that they are aggregated 

 into a mass instead of being solitary. 



Sometimes the fruit consists not only of the 

 modified portions of one flower, but of an aggre- 

 gation of flowers. A Pine-apple or a Mulberry, 

 for instance, is the result of the ripening not of 

 one flower only, but of a whole inflorescence or 

 spike — bracts, perianth, and carpels becoming 

 all of them more or less succulent and blended 

 into one common mass. 



The object of these various changes in the 

 ripening of the fruit may be considered to be 

 the dispersal of the seed. In the capsular fruits 

 the seeds are often ejected with some force, 

 whilst the succulent fruits are eaten by birds 

 and the seeds thus scattered. 



Frequently the seeds or the seed-cases are 

 covered with hooks, as in burrs, which become 

 entangled with the coats of animals or the 



