Fig. 16
The lower parts of the pins without dust boxes do not grow into one piece with the green cup (now the red cup), as in the apple and the pear. Instead, this cup (Fig. [16]) is hollow. To its inner sides are fastened the little seedboxes, as you will see if you look carefully at the picture. This hollow case with its separate seedboxes shows you that the rose plant is not so closely related to the pear and the apple trees as these trees are to each other.
UNEATABLE FRUITS
Perhaps one day you bit into the fruit of the rose, and found it sour and unpleasant to the taste. You may have forgotten that not long ago you learned a new meaning for the word “fruit.” Possibly you still fancy that a fruit must be something good to eat. So many people have this idea, that once more I wish to make clear to you that the fruit is the seed-holding part of the plant.
Whether this part is good to eat or not, makes no difference as to its being a fruit.
The apple is a fruit, you remember, not because it is good to eat, but because it holds the seeds of the apple tree.
And for this same reason the pear is a fruit. It is the case in which is laid the seedbox of the pear tree. This case, when ripe, happens to be juicy and delicious; but it would be quite as much a fruit if it were dry and hard, and without taste.
And so the rose hip is a fruit, because it is the case which holds the little seedboxes of the rose flower.
What is the fruit of the milkweed?