6i4 
PHANEROGAMS. 
or paniculate inflorescences ; but is found also in those that are cymose and that have 
all the flowers terminal (Labiatae and Echium). It seems as though the vigorous 
development of the principal rachis of the entire inflorescence — whether the final 
ramifications are cymose or not — often determines a zygomorphic development of 
flowers, as is shown in Labiatae, Scitamineae, and jEsculus. The formation of a vigorous 
pseud-axis appears to exercise a similar influence in the case of sympodial inflorescences 
(as in Echium), 
6. The Fruit of Angiosperms is the mature övary which contains the ripe seeds and 
has undergone physiological changes as the result of fertilisation. The style and stigmas 
are frequently deciduous (as in Cucurbita, Grasses, &c.). Some of the ovules not un- 
frequently disappear, and the number of seeds is thus less than that of the ovules. 
When all the ovules of one or more loculi of a multilocular ovary disappear in the 
process of ripening, only the fertile loculus continues to grow ; the others become 
partially or entirely suppressed, and can be recognised only with difficulty or not at all. 
A multilocular ovary may thus produce a unilocular, and often a one-seeded fruit. Thus 
from the trilocular ovary of the Oak, each loculus of which contains two ovules, results 
a unilocular one-seeded fruit, the acorn. A less complete disappearance of two or four 
loculi together with their ovules occurs in the tri- or quinqui-locular ovai y of the Lime, 
the fruit usually containing only one seed. 
Parts of the flower again which do not belong to the gynaeceum, or even not to the 
flower, undergo changes resulting from fertilisation. The entire structure which is thus 
formed may be termed a Pseudocarp, and may be composed of a single fruit or of a 
number of true fruits together with the surrounding parts which have undergone 
peculiar development. Thus, for example, the strawberry is a pseudocarp, the axial 
part (or receptacle) of the flower swelling out and becoming fleshy, and bearing on its 
surface the true small fruits. In the 'hip' of the Rose the hollow urn-shaped flower- 
stalk (a^ain the receptacle) encloses the separate ripe fruits in the form of a red or 
yellovk^ succulent envelope. The apple is also in the same sense a pseudocarp ; and the 
mulberry results from a whole spike of flowers, the perianth-leaves of each separate 
flower swelling and becoming fleshy and enclosing the small dry fruit. In the fig the 
hollowed- out stalk of the whole inflorescence forms the pseudocarp, bearing the fruits 
inside. 
Starting from the definition that a fruit is always the product of a single ripe ovary, 
it follows that several fruits may arise from one flower, whenever, namely, there is more 
than one monocarpellary ovary in the flower ; in other words, when the flower is poly- 
carpellary and apocarpous ; each carpel therefore produces a simple fruit. The simple 
fruits, taken together, may be termed an aggregate fruit, but it would be much better to 
apply to it the term Syncarp. Thus, for example, the small fruits resulting from the 
flower of Rajiunculus or Clematis or the larger ones from the flower of Poeonia or Helle- 
borus, form together a syncarp. Of a similar character is the blackberry, consisting 
of a number of drupe-like fruits, the product of a single flower. The fleshy receptacle 
of the Rose-hip again encloses a syncarp, but the separate fruits constitutmg it are in 
this case dry and not fleshy. The syncarp must not be confounded with the pseudocarp 
resulting from an entire inflorescence, as in the cases of the mulberry and fig already ~ 
named, or the pine-apple, or Benthamia f rag f er a. 
The single multilocular ovary of a flower may undergo transformation so as to pro- 
duce two or more parts, each containing seeds, and appearing like simple fruits, and 
hence termed Mericarps, while the whole. fruit is called a Schi%ocarp. This separation 
may take place at a very early period in the process of the formation of the fruit ; as in 
^ropceolum, where each loculus, enclosing a single seed, becomes ro.unded and at length 
entirely separated from the others as a closed mericarp ; and in Boragineae and 
Labiatae, where each of the two carpels produces two one-seeded chambers, all four 
becoming at length completely separated, and surrounding the style as distinct mericarps 
(here called Carceruli) ; or the separation only takes place by the splitting and rupture 
