fruit terminology

[John Nelson]

TUES 21 Aug 213p

Friends:

        My Colleague John Herr (herr at biol.sc.edu) offers these thoughts on the
apple/gooseberry questions-


  The inquiry mentions the "remains of the calyx".  However, the largest
component of an apple is the calyx.  The basal portion of the sepals are
musch enlarged and fused  either with the true ovary or with the
receptacular tissue surrounding the ovary (an unsettled point).  The
"remains" mentioned actually represents the free apices of the sepals.
I have never heard of a term for the depression spoken of.  The Epiynous
flower of the apple is the consequence of fusion of a hypanthium (the
perigynous condition) to the gynoecium.  The depression mentioned merely
represents a cup remaining because hypanthial fusion is incomplete.

My sources offer no term for the two parts of the pedicel in
Gooseberrys.  Proximal and distal should be sufficient in descriptions.
--  John Herr


--
John B. Nelson
A. C. Moore Herbarium
Department of Biological Sciences
University of South Carolina
Columbia SC 29208

ph 803-777-8196
fax 803-777-4002
nelson at sc.edu

Non totum difficile est, sed nihil facile.