, 1909-11-10

the nutlets are attached, which we shall easl-
" find out if we examine the little fruits of
any one of the three vervains, but now we
have come to the pigeon berry we arrive at
something quite different. When the flowers
drop off, n number Of shiny and brightly
coloured fruits follow. What then has be-
come of the nutlets? The botanists tell Us
that they are there hidden away inside those
orange-coloured berries. Shall we take it
for granted or shall we try to verify 1t ?
The latter is always best when possible, so
suppose that we set about it. Let us begin
with the history OF this pretty yellow fruit.
When the corolla drops, the five teeth Of
the calyx close up over the top Of the ovary.
This is done promptly. Ii we see the action
we may suspect that the calyx hardly waits
for the corolla to fall off, but by contracting
upon it helps ii off with a little friendly
squeeze. Friendly, that is, to the oyary,
which it seems in a great hurry to protect.
Is it, though, protection solely that is IN view?
If we follow the case from day to day We
shall notice chat the closed calyX begins to
swell u little and begins too to take on a
yellow colour, all but the point which it
forms with it's closed teeth, this keeps green
all the time. Otherwise the yellow colour
deepens ard the calyX continues to grow
until we have the pigeou-berry as we see 1T,
Oatwardly then the berry is an altered calyX.
How thick has the latter g%rown,and what does
it cover inside ? To get answers to these gu IS
tions we take a p~enknife an cut round Out
not through the berry about half way up,and
then with a little care we can lift off the top Of
the enlarged calYx like a little yellow cup,and
we hnd it Heshy and juicy throughout.
We can then remove the lower part Of the
caIyx, and we find that we have an Oya,
shiny, orange-coloured body, the oyary
grown into a fruit. But where are
the nutlets ? Well, a little patience
viii get at them too. We cut off
some of the flesh from the top and from the
bottom Of the fruit now free from the
calyx, and then we find the four nutlets
across the middle. If we try to divide them
rashly we shall probably fail, for they are
very hard, bat if we search for the lines Of
aniou with the point OF our p~enknife we
shall get them out quite easily. Then if we
choose to go further we can in the same way,
but with greater pressure, break the nutlats
open and then we shall find that each con
tains two chambers, with developed seeds
OF not as the case may be.
The conversion OF the calyx into an eata-
BILE adjunct to the fruit is very remarkable.
1t reminds us of Il similar clse IN one of the
three pisonias dealt with IN an earlier article.
IL may be remembered that Ill all three the
calyx aided the dispersion of the seed, in
two Of them by the development Of sticky
glands around the caIyx and IN the third by
it's conversion into the covering OF an eata-
bic berry.
AS viii be seen below, the plant under
discussion has been called by the b)tanists
Plumbers Duranta. Possibly pigeon-berry
is a good local name, it may be that the wild
pigeons eat them. Grisebach does not give
the name, however, in his colonial list, so
that perhaps it would not be good in the
West indies generally, while outside the
West Indies it would certainly fail, for
opigeon- berry in the States means quite a
different plant, a shrub which bears crimson
berries, and is q cousin of the pretty little
Rj0iqa of these islands, Why not circulate the
name Dtranta, which is easy to remember,
sounds well aud would be everywhere
understood Henderson says the name was
given in honour Of Castor Durantes, a physl-
clan and botanist.
Let us now turn to a couple of relatives
of the vervain which are SO much alike that
we may take them together, namely the
shrubs known as thief yellow and the+ purple
sages. Though called sages they are no