The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1882-08-24
Fruits Of the Rose Family.
The ultimate origin of the pulpine.

The ultimate origin of the pulpiness in
plums and cherries was quite antecedent
to any particular adoption of their stocks
in the primitive orchards of early man.
So far as we can now tell, the roses do
not date back in time beyond the tertiary
period of geology. The very earliest
members of the family still extant are
little creeping herbs, like cinquefoil and
silver-weed, with yellow blossoms Gall
primitive blossoms, indeed, are Yellow
and small, dry inedible seeds. The
strawberry is the lowest type of rose
above these very simple forms. 1t is
still a creeping herb, and its seeds are
still small, dry and inedible; but they are
imbedded in juicy pulp which entices
birds to swallow them, and SO aid in
dispensing them under circumstances
peculiarly favorable to their due germi-
nation and growth. Next in order after
this earliest rude succulent type (nature's
first rough sketch of fruit, so to speak;
and very successful one, too, from the
human point of view at least) come the
blackberry and raspberry, where the in
dividual fruitlets grow soft, sweet and
pulpy, instead of remaining dry as in the
strawberry. And this change clearly
marks step in advance; so that
blackberries and raspberries are en-
abled to get along with fewer
seeds, and yet to thrive much better
in the struggle for, life too-seeing
that they have developed into stout
woody trailers, often forming consider
able thickets, and killing down all the
lesser vegetation beneath and between
them. Again, the dogsroses show still
higher development, alike in their.erect
bushy form, in their large pink flowers,
and in their big scarlet hips-which are
UNBEATABLE by us. it is true. but are great
favorites with birds in severe winters
The haws OF the whitethorn are even
more successful in attracting the robins
and other non-migratory allies; and the
whitethorn has been enabled, according.
ly, to reduce its seeds to one or two,
each enclosed in hard, bony, indigesti-
ble.nut. Finally at the very summit of
the genealogical tree, we get the plum
tribe, highest of all the roses; growing
into considerable arborescent forms
(thougt in this respect inferior to pears
or apples), and producing large, lus-
cious, pulpy fruits, with single stony
seed, admirably adapted to the best
type of dispersion, and never wasting a
solitary germ unnecessarily, as must be
continually the case with its small dry
seeded congeners, the silver weeds and
Not, of course, that this
pedigree must be accepted in lineal
sense Cindeed, the roses early in their
history broke up into at least three dis
tinct lines, which have evolved separ-
ately on their own account. and have
eliminated respectively in the plums,
the true roses and the apples); but it IL
Illustrates the general method of their de-
yelopment, and it shows the strong ten
dency which they all alike possess to-
ward the production of sweet pulpy
fruits in one form or another.
If You look for moment at a ripe
cherry-by preference a red one, as be-
ing less artificial than the pale white
hearts-you will see how well it is fitted
to perform the functions for which the
tree has produced it. 1t has bright
outer coat, to attract the eyes of birds,
and especially of southern birds, for
England is near its northern limit, and
it is big fruit for our native species to
eat; rowan-berries, haws and bird-cher-
ries- are rather their special food in, our
northern ATTITUDES. Then, again, it has
. sweet pulp to tempt their appetite;
sweetness and bright color in plants
being almost always directly traceable
to animal selection. But inside, its ac-.
tual seed is protected by stony shell;
while its kernel is stored with rich food
stuffs for the young Seeding, laid by in
its thick seed-leaves, which form the
two lobes of the almond-like embryo.
The flower, it is true, has pair of sep
aratc ovules, which ought, under ordi-
nary circumstances, to develop into two
seeds; but as the fruit ripens one
OF them almost always atrophies.
Such dimunition in the number OF seeds
invariably accompanies every advance
IN specialization, or every fresh forward
steps in appliances for more certain dis
tribntion. The little hard nuts on the
outside of the strawberry number Fifty
Or sixty; the nutlets of the raspberry
number only some twenty or thirty, the
pips of the apple, relatively i'll protected
by the leathery core, range from five to
ten; the stones of the haw, with their
bonner covering, are only two;s but in
the plum tribe, with their extreme adap-
tation to animal dispersion, the
seeds have reached the naintnsuns
srreduci6le Of one. It is this highest
tribe of all, accordingly, that sup
plies us with what we call distincsively
our stone-fruits. The sloes of the conf
mon blackthorn have grown, under cub
tivation, into our. domestic pluns;; the
two wild cherries have grown into our
and bigaroons; an Eastern bush
has been gradually developed into our
more delicate apricots. The old-fasli-
oned botanists have thrust the peach
and hectarine into a, separate genus, be-
cause of their wrinkled stones; but COM
mon sense will show any one that it
would be much easier to get peach out
Of an apricot than to get an apricot
but of a plum; and, indeed, these artifi-
cial scientific distinctions are fast break
ng down at the present day, as we learn
more and more about the infinite plastic
ty of living forms under cultivation OF
altered circumstances. Even the almond,
different as its nut appears from the
plum type of fruit, is really a plum by |