Fig. 360. Longitudinal section of a young strawberry, enlarged.
Fig. 361. Similar section of a young Rose-hip.
Fig. 362. Enlarged and top-shaped receptacle of Nelumbium, at maturity.
325. Flowers with very numerous simple pistils generally have the receptacle enlarged so as to give them room; sometimes becoming broad and flat, as in the Flowering Raspberry, sometimes elongated, as in the Blackberry, the Magnolia, etc. It is the receptacle in the Strawberry (Fig. [360]), much enlarged and pulpy when ripe, which forms the eatable part of the fruit, and bears the small seed-like pistils on its surface. In the Rose (Fig. [361]), instead of being convex or conical, the receptacle is deeply concave, or urn-shaped. Indeed, a Rose-hip may be likened to a strawberry turned inside out, like the finger of a glove reversed, and the whole covered by the adherent tube of the calyx. The calyx remains beneath in the strawberry.
326. In Nelumbium, of the Water-Lily family, the singular and greatly enlarged receptacle is shaped like a top, and bears the small pistils immersed in separate cavities of its flat upper surface (Fig. [362]).
Fig. 363. Hypogynous disk in Orange.