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Fruits which arrange themselves for a clientèle, of this character have usually thick or nauseous rinds, prickly husks, or other deterrent integuments; but they are full within of juicy pulp, embedding stony or nutlike seeds, which pass undigested through the gizzards of their swallowers. For a similar reason, the actual prickly pears themselves are attractively coloured.
Only the insects can do a thing like that; only certain insects can break into the circuit of vegetable life and divert its forces to serve their special ends. One kind of an insect stings a bud or a leaf of the oak, and the tree forthwith grows a solid nutlike protuberance the size of a chestnut, in which the larvæ of the insect live and feed and mature.
There is the outer rind of fleshy texture, like an unripe peach; enclosed within is the nutlike shell, enveloped in the crimson network of mace, and within the shell is the nutmeg itself. All this is perfect enough, but, alas, the grand desideratum is wanting it has no flavor or aroma whatever. It is a gross imposition on the part of Nature; a most stingy trick upon the public, and a regular do.
Gymnosperms, akin to the cycads, were also present in the Carboniferous forests. Such were the different species of CORDAITES, trees pyramidal in shape, with strap-shaped leaves and nutlike fruit. Other gymnosperms were related to the yews, and it was by these that many of the fossil nuts found in the Coal Measures were borne.
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