1338. The fruit therefore is also that part of the plant in which all
vegetable bodies have been concentrated into flesh. Now, as the highest
vegetable bodies pass over into the next, and consequently into the
animal kingdom, and are therefore palatable as food, so is the fruit
also in essence the sarcocarp. For this is the directly edible part of
the plant, that e. g. which does not need being cooked.
1339. The nutritious substance of the fruit can be none other than a
highly elevated and analysed kind of mucus, such as starch and gum,
sugar and acids. Flour is that which resembles the root, sugar the
stalk, acids the foliage; therefore flour is in the seed, sugar in the
pistil, and acid in the calyx.
1340. There can be only three kinds of fruit, that constantly accord
with the preponderance of the three parts of the flower, as seed-fruit,
pistil-and corolla-fruit.
1341. The fruit that has the preponderance of the seed, or where the
edible substance resides in the seed, and the ovary itself has become
seed-shaped, is the _Nut_. The nut is the cariopsis that has become
sarcocarp; it is therefore one-seeded--farinaceous sarcocarp.
1342. In the ovarian fruit the ovarium has become demi nut-like, half
corolla-like or fleshy, as in the _Plum_. It is the carpel that has
become sarcocarp--acid sarcocarp.
1343. The fruit, in which the whole ovarium together with the calyx
is edible, is the corolla-fruit, the _Berry_. Only those perfectly
soft fruits are true berries which are inclosed by the calyx, as being
forsooth a part of the blossom. The berry is the siliqua or hollow
capsule that has become sarcocarp. Therefore it has numerous and small
seeds--saccharine sarcocarp.
1344. Finally, these fruits combine to form a common fruit, which
represents the proper synthesis of all parts of the blossom, or in
which seed, ovarium and flower, along with the calyx, have become
sarcocarp. This is the _Apple_, a syncarpus. The apple is the calyx
become sarcocarp, and as it usually incloses several carpels, it is
therefore polycarpal and contains few seeds. It consists of seed,
ovarium and calyx, which have become flesh. The apple, as being an
unopen calyx-fruit, may probably be regarded as the fruit of the trunk.
It furnishes properly drink and food, is the fruit against thirst and
hunger--the universal, alimentary sarcocarp. The apple contains all
the bodies that have been named, viz. flour, acids and sugar. It is
thus chemically also the synthetic fruit, which may be converted into
the whole animal flesh, and thus become a true medium of nutrition. The
nut is only garbage, the plum and berry, cherry and grape, only drinks
or delicacies.
1345. Other vegetable substances, which range lower in chemical
development, as mucus, bitter and colouring matters, with resins, are
associated for the greatest part in root, stalk and leaves.
FRUIT OF THE FLOWERLESS PLANTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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