Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/405

ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.

201 These differ from the preceding by the adhesion of the ovaries with the sides of the calyx and more or less with each other. " The fruit is always a pome; that is, it is made up of a fleshy calyx adhering to fleshy or bony ovaries, containing a definite number of &eeds. Pomeae are principally distinguished by their ovnles being in pairs and side by side, while Rosaceae, when they have two or more ascending ovules, always have them one above the other. Cultivated plants of this order are very apt to produce monstrous flowers which depart sometimes in a most remarkable degree from their normal state : nor can any order be more instructively studied with a view morphological inquiries, particularly the common pear when in blossom. A remarkable permanent monster of this kind with 14 styles, 14 ovaries and a calyx, with 10 divisions in two rows is described in the Revue Encyclopedique, thus exhibiting a tend- ency on the part of Pomeae to assume the indefinite ovaries and double calyx of Rosaceae. I have seen a Primus in a similar state" — Lindley.

Plants of this sub-order abound in Europe and northern Asia, a few are found in the mountains of India. Two species of Photinea are found in the Indian peninsula and Ceylon, and the Loquat (Eryobotria) is generally cultivated in India, and, besides yielding a fine fruit, is found very useful as a stock on which to graft the apple. The apple also thrives well and produces good fruit not only in the cooler parts of the Peninsula, but even in Madras, where several fine apples have been ripened.

The apple and pear are too generally known and esteemed to require more notice here than that of being named. In this country the Loquat is also pretty well known though scarcely so well as it deserves. The two species of Photinea are almost unknown but with the view of extending our knowledge of them I have figured both, one here, and the other in the Icones. Should they be found to thrive on the plains they may prove useful as stocks for grafting on, none of the other genera are known in this country.

" Calyx 5-toothed, deciduous, lined with a disk ; the fifth lobe next the axis. Petals 5, perigynous. Stamens 20, or thereabouts, arising from the throat of the calyx, in aestivation curved inwards ; anthers innate, 2-celled, bursting longitudinally. Ovary superior, solitary, simple, 1-celled; ovules 2, suspended; styles terminal, with a furrow on one side, terminating in a reniform stigma. Fruit a drupe, with the putamen sometimes separating spontaneously from the sarcocarp, Seeds mostly solitary, suspended, in consequence of the cohesion of a funiculus umbilicalis, arising from the base or the cavity of the ovary, with its side. Embryo straight, with the radicle pointing to the hilum ; cotyledons thick ; albumen none. Trees or shrubs. Leaves simple, alternate, usually glandular towards the base. Stipules simple, mostly glandular. Flowers white or pink. Hydrocyanic acid present in the leaves and kernel."

To this sub-order all our stone fruit belong: the sloe and its numerous derivatives, the almost endless variety of plums : the cherry in all its various forms : and the almond from which, according to some, cultivation has elicited the various kinds of peaches, nectarines, and apricots, but which others consider distinct species. They are distinguished from the two preceding orders by the fruit being a drupe (a succulent stone fruit) by their bark yielding gum, but most remarkably by the presence of Prussic or Hydrocyanic acid. To Leguminosae they approach through Detarium which has a drupaceous fruit, but are separated by their regular petals and stamens, by the position of the odd sepal and by the presence of Prussic acid " It is not a little remarkable that here, where we have a close approach to the structure of Mimoseae. in Leguminosae, we have also the only instance among Rosaceae of an approach to the property- possessed by that sub-order of the bark yielding gum ; the peculiar astringeney of some species is also analogous to that of Acacia catechu and the like." Lindley.

None of the species of this sub-order are known to exist