. Flowers and their pedigrees . s gone back to the nut-producing cases are nearly analogous to those of the straw-berry and the potentilla, only the strawberry is a fruitdeveloped from a dry seed, whereas the almond is adry seed developed from a fruit. To some extentthis may be regarded as a case of retrogressive evolu-tion or degeneration. The second great divergent branch of the rosefamily—that of the pears and apples—has proceededtowards much the same end as the plums, but in astrikingly different manner. The apple kind havegrown into trees, and have produced fruits. Instead, A Fa
. Flowers and their pedigrees . s gone back to the nut-producing cases are nearly analogous to those of the straw-berry and the potentilla, only the strawberry is a fruitdeveloped from a dry seed, whereas the almond is adry seed developed from a fruit. To some extentthis may be regarded as a case of retrogressive evolu-tion or degeneration. The second great divergent branch of the rosefamily—that of the pears and apples—has proceededtowards much the same end as the plums, but in astrikingly different manner. The apple kind havegrown into trees, and have produced fruits. Instead, A Family History. 221 however, of the seed vessel itself becoming soft andsucculent, the calyx or outer flower covering of thepetals has covered up the carpels or young seedvessels even in the blossom, and has then swollen outinto a sort of stalk-like fruit. The case, indeed, isagain not unlike that of the strawberry, only thathere the stalk has enlarged outward round the flowerand inclosed the seeds, instead of simply swelling. Ftg. 47.—Vertical section of Apple-blossom. into a boss and embedding them. In the hip of thetrue roses we get some foreshadowing of this plan,except that in the roses the seeds still remained sepa-rate and free inside the swollen stalk, whereas in thepear and apple the entire fruit grows into a single solidmass. Here also, as before, we can trace a gradualdevelopment from the bushy to the tree-like form. The common hawthorn of our hedges shows us,perhaps, the simplest stage in the evolution of theapple tribe. It grows only into a tall bush, not 222 Flowers and their Pedigrees. unlike that of the blackthorn, and similarly armedwith stout spines, which are really short sharpbranches, not mere prickly hairs, as in the case of thebrambles. Occasionally, however, some of the haw-thorns develop into real trees, with a single stumpytrunk, though they never grow to more than meresmall spreading specimens of the arboreal type, quiteunlike the very tall and st
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1884
