x1 
either discharges its perfected ovules through openings made in the 
vessel, or drops to the ground and decays, allowing the seeds to 
germinate. The mode of opening, technically called dehiscence, is 
often an important characteristic; non-opening seed-vessels are 
said to be indehiscent, 
There is a great variety of form and structure in the fruit of 
plants; but we can here notice only some of the more frequent 
kinds. A dry fruit dehiscing by valvular openings or pores is 
termed a capsule, as in the Poppy and Foxglove. A. siliqua is a cap- 
sule opening by two valves and leaving the seeds attached to a 
membranous frame or replum formed by the placentas in the 
centre, as in the Wall-flower and other Crucifersze ; when short and 
thick, it is called by some writers a silicula. A legume or pod is a 
fruit formed of one carpel bearing a row of seeds along the united 
margins of the leaf, and opening by both sutures, as in the Pea and 
Broom; the term pod, however, is often given to the siliqua of 
Cruciferze and to other fruits which resemble the legume externally. 
A follicle is a pod opening only by the ventral suture, or that along 
which the seeds are attached, as in the Larkspur ; it is usually pro- 
duced in flowers bearing several pistils, two or more follicles con- 
stituting the fruit. Among the indehiscent varieties may be men- 
tioned the achenium, a one-seeded carpel with a separable covering, 
generally, like the follicle, found several together, as in the Butter- 
cup; the nut, a hard one-celled fruit, containing a single seed ; the 
drupe, a fleshy fruit enclosing a nut-like seed-vessel, as im the 
Cherry ; the berry, in which the seeds are imbedded in a pulpy 
mass, as in the Hawthorn fruit ; and the pome or apple, where the 
adherent calyx forms, with the outer covering of the ovary, a succu- 
lent body in which are cells containing the seeds. 
The seed consists of the embryo or young plant, surrounded 
usually by a quantity of matter stored up for its nutriment, called 
albumen, and enclosed in a éesta or cuticle. The albumen is of 
various consistence,—farinaceous, as in Wheat; fleshy, as in the 
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