Abstract
IN a flower, such as that of an apple-tree, there is a tubular structure in the centre, forming the female portion of the flower, and that is surrounded and overtopped by a number of rods, bearing at their extremities sacs of pollen, this constituting the male clement. When a grain of pollen, either of the same or another flower, enters the central tube, or pistil, fertilisation occurs, and a seed, or pip, begins to form near the base of the pistil. As it develops, the woody substance surrounding it, which is really a portion of the stalk of the tree, gradually swells to a remarkable extent, and eventually forms the fleshy or edible portion of the fruit. We commonly call it the fruit, but it is only a metamorphosed portion of the mother-tree: the real fruit of the tree, the progeny of male and female elements, is the pip. When this is sown in the ground, it germinates, and eventually forms a new tree, which, though probably showing some resemblance to its two parents, will be a new variety, and will not bear apples of the same sort as the mother-tree. One reason which makes it all the more improbable that a pip will give rise to a tree bearing fruit like that of the mother-tree, is that in many cases the female portion of the flower cannot be fertilised except by pollen from a tree of a different variety.
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Horticultural Investigations at the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm 1M . Nature 91, 675–678 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091675b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091675b0