Depressed is an unusually flattened oblate form.

Turbinate or top-shaped, and pyriform or pear-shaped, are especially applicable to pears, and seldom to apples.

When these forms are described evenly about a vertical axis, as shown by a section of the fruit made transversely, or across the axis, the specimen may be called regular or uniform, fig. 36; if otherwise, it is irregular, fig. 37, unequal, fig. 38, oblique or lop-sided, fig. 39, in which last cases the axis is inclined to one side. If the development at the surface is irregular, as in the Duchesse d'Angouleme and Bartlett pears, the fruit is termed uneven.


Fig. 36.—REGULAR.
Fig. 37.—IRREGULAR.

Fig. 38.—UNEQUAL.
Fig. 39.—LOP-SIDED.

Fig. 40.—COMPRESSED.
Fig. 41.—QUADRANGULAR.

When a transverse section of the fruit, made at right angles to the axis, gives the figure of a circle, the fruit is regular; if otherwise, it may be compressed or flattened at the sides, fig. 40; angular, quadrangular, fig. 41; sulcate or furrowed, fig. 42, when marked by sulcations; or ribbed, fig. 43, when the intervening ridges are abrupt. Heart-shaped is a form that applies more especially to the cherry, than any other kind of fruit.


Fig. 42.—SULCATE.
Fig. 43.—RIBBED.

Size is a character of but second rate importance, since it is dependent upon the varying conditions of soil, climate, overbearing, etc. It has its value, however, when it is considered as comparative or relative. The expressions employed in this work to indicate size, are: very large, large, medium, small, very small, making five grades.

The characters of the Skin and surface are generally very reliable, though the smoothness of the skin as well as the coloring depend upon both soil and climate. We find, however, that a striped apple which has been shaded, though pale, will always betray itself by a splash or stripe, be it ever so small or rare, nor will any exposure so deepen and exaggerate its stripes as to make it a self-colored fruit; and no circumstances will introduce a true stripe upon a self-colored variety. Hence we may consider this kind of marking a reliable character, and apply it as an element of our classification. We sometimes find lines on self-colored fruits that are as distinctive as the stripes, but entirely distinct from them.

The skin itself may be either thick or thin, smooth, rough, or polished, and it is sometimes uneven; it may be covered with a bloom, it may be russeted in whole or in part, and this may be thickly or thinly spread over the surface, or only net-veined. A sort of russeting occurs about the stem only in some varieties, and is never seen in others, making a pretty good character, but in the same variety it is often much increased or diminished.