tiles


Note:  Do not rely on this information. It is very old.

Schizocarp

Schizocarp, a dry, partly dehiscent, syncarpouus fruit, splitting in such a manner as not to disclose its seeds, dividing into bodies known as mericarps, cocci, or nutlets, each consisting of a carpel or of half a carpel, and each generally containing one seed. Though physiologically identical, schizocarps are structural1y of two classes - viz, superior, or regmas, and inferior, or cremocarps. As types of the first we have the fruits of the Malvaceae, Geranium, Tropaeolum, and Euphorbiaceae, which split into thelr constituent carpels, and those of the Labiatae and Boraginaceae, in which two carpels give, owing to ingrowth of their midribs, four nutlets. The samara (q.v.) of the maples is merely a w111ged regma. As types of the cremocarp we have the bicarpellate fruits of the Umbelliferae, which, being inferior, are necessarily in part receptacular in origin, and which split into two mencarps.