Elements of Physiophilosophy

by Lorenz Oken

1336. The fruit is therefore the last and most perfect consummation of the plant, or the whole vegetable trunk repeated as unity.

1337. In the fruit not merely the sum of all vegetable forms is united, but also that of all vegetable matters. It is the whole vegetable body repeated mathematically, physically and chemically.

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.