[354.] The Pome is a name applied to the apple, pear (Fig. [374]), and quince; fleshy fruits, like a berry, but the principal thickness is calyx, only the papery pods arranged like a star in the core really belonging to the carpels. The fruit of the Hawthorn is a drupaceous pome, something between pome and drupe.
355. Of fruits which are externally fleshy and internally hard the leading kind is
[356.] The Drupe, or Stone-fruit; of which the cherry, plum, and peach (Fig. [375]) are familiar examples. In this the outer part of the thickness of the pericarp becomes fleshy, or softens like a berry, while the inner hardens, like a nut. From the way in which the pistil is constructed, it is evident that the fleshy part here answers to the lower, and the stone to the upper face of the component leaf. The layers or concentric portions of a drupe, or of any pericarp which is thus separable, are named, when thus distinguishable into three portions,—
Epicarp, the external layer, often the mere skin of the fruit,
Mesocarp, the middle layer, which is commonly the fleshy part, and
Endocarp, the innermost layer, the stone. But more commonly only two portions of a drupe are distinguished, and are named, the outer one
Sarcocarp or Exocarp, for the flesh, the first name referring to the fleshy character, the second to its being an external layer; and
Putamen or Endocarp, the Stone, within.
