IV The Weeks Between the Flower and the Fruit
The petals expand broadly, usually losing most of their pink. The blade is oblong and rounded at the end, at first cupped and then nearly flat, three-fourths of an inch long, narrowed at the base into a short stem-like part and usually hairy there, the edges perhaps wavy but entire. The expanse of the flower may be one and one-half to two inches. The brush of stamens, erect in the center, sheds its pollen and the anthers collapse.
Then the petals fall, like flakes of snow, borne often by the wind. There remain the stout woolly flower-stems an inch or more long and bearing minute dry bracts, with the young fruit at the summit topped by the five recurving woolly sepals and the pencil of stamens and styles. The bloom being gone, the flowering system of the apple is thenceforth little observed. Not until the fruit begins to color do we come back to the apple-tree to look at it closely; yet in these intervening weeks some of the most interesting transformations take place, and on the exact observance of them depends to a large extent one’s success in the rearing and saving of a good crop of apples.
Here is the flower of the apple-tree (Fig. 3). It is a comely blossom, fragrant and pinky white, flatly spread to the sky, carrying the spirit of the cool of the spring. What concerns us now, however, is the cluster of stamens and pistils in the center, for these organs are directly concerned in the production of the fruit. The petals soon fall, but the remains of these interior organs persist, even unto the ripening of the fruit.
The anther is attached at the back of its base or middle to the top of the filament in the suture separating the two large cells. These anther-cells split along the outer margins, releasing the pollen-grains.
In the center of the ring of stamens are the five style-branches, which are united at the base into a short hairy column; the column is borne on the ovary, which is sunken deep into the receptacle or stem (Fig. 4). It is down these style-branches that the pollen-tube passes on its way to the ovules or embryo seeds. The top of the style is expanded into a cupped stigma on which are many glutinous points. One can observe the browning and ripening of the stigma after pollen has been deposited by wind, bees or other agencies. When the ovules are fertilized, the forming fruit enlarges regularly unless it meets with misfortune or is crowded out for lack of room and nourishment.
If one cuts across the ovary or embryo fruit below the recurving sepals, one will see under a lens that it is neatly five-celled (Fig. 5). In each cell are two ovules; these, if all goes well, will ripen into ten seeds. These five cells comprise most of the diameter in the cross-section: but as the ovary enlarges and the young fruit grows, one may see that the inner part comprising the cells begins to have a character of its own and to be differentiated from the surrounding flesh.
The “blossom” falls. In reality only the petals fall. What is left is well shown in Fig. 6. Here remain the upstanding stamens with the empty anthers, and in the center one could see the five styles if the specimen were in hand. Here also are the calyx-lobes, widely spreading and even recurved. The photograph for Fig. 6 was taken May 3. On May 17 another cluster was photographed from the same tree (Fig. 7). Three of the flowers have produced sturdy young apples. The stems or pedicels have become stouter, and they begin to spread. Note that the calyx now is closed, the old stamens protruding, a circumstance that will have special significance when we become acquainted with the codlin-moth. Note also that one flower has failed, and remains as it was two weeks earlier; it will soon fall. The young apples begin to take shape. They show a glow of red on the cheek. They are fuzzy all over. One of them is already injured on one side, having been stung by a curculio or other insect: there are keen senses about the apple-tree.
Two weeks later (May 31) still another cluster was taken from the same tree (Fig. 8). Here are three fruits erect on their stems; one of them is more than an inch in diameter either way, sturdy and unblemished; another shows deformity due to insect puncture; the third remains small and presently will drop. A scar in the leaf-axil marks the failure of another flower. Four blossoms were in this cluster, but only one fruit now has a chance to come to uninjured maturity, and two have already failed. The big apple has now lost most of its fuzziness and begins to assume a delicate “bloom” on its surface; the smallest one—the one that soon will perish—still holds some of its fuzz. A section of this smallest fruit discloses empty cells; apparently it was not fertilized.
Another two weeks have passed. It is June 14th. From the same tree is taken the photograph, Fig. 9. Here is a big apple, 1-1/2 inch in diameter; and there is a dead shrivelled fruit that dropped when I touched it. Of the several flowers in the cluster, all have failed but one. This one fruit has now passed the danger of the blossom-end infection by the codlin-moth and it has no blemishes. The many whitish spots characteristic of the variety are now conspicuous all over the surface. The ribs begin to show. There is a faint blush on the upper side. The fuzz has disappeared and the bloom is becoming evident. The calyx is tightly closed, although the tips of the sepals are spread widely. The stem is stout. The weight of the apple inclines it nearly to the horizontal. Yet this good apple is not symmetrical; one side is larger than the other. I cut it crosswise and find two cells on the larger side developing two strong seeds each, whilst those on the smaller side have a single seed each and one of these seeds is small and perhaps would not have matured. The fleshy part of the apple, outside the core, now occupies about as much of the diameter as the core itself and much more than one-half the bulk of the fruit. Already my apple, now half grown, shows many of its distinctive characteristics.
Yet another fortnight has come and gone, and it is June 28th. It has been good “growing weather.” Summer is here, full-orbed, regal, bringing the abundance of the earth. Here are two stout apples hanging on their stems (Fig. 10), for they are now too heavy to be held erect. The larger fruit is a trifle more than two inches in diameter. The feature spots are now still more prominent on these apples, the ribs more pronounced, the blush against the sun more warm. Both these fruits, from one spur, will mature; but the smaller one will be blemished, for the apple-scab fungus has established itself on the crown and about the calyx. Already the growth is checked in that area, and the apple looks flattened. There is no evidence in either apple of codlin-moth invasion. The adjoining spur, not clearly shown in the photograph, is barren; it gave no flowers this year, and it shows no indication of a blossom-bud for next year. The leaves are thick and vigorous, yet they bear marks of insect injury and one of them has been extensively skeletonized. On the whole, however, the fruits have the mastery, and they now make a brave show.
July has passed this way. Tomorrow it will be August. The odor of apples is now in my tree. There are big striped apples on the ground, plucked by the wind, the hold loosened by bugs for they too have felt the fullness of July. Three apples, one of them three inches through and two and one-half inches high, and the others nearly as big, hang at the level of my eyes. You may see them in Fig. 11. Here rises again my boyhood spent in an orchard now passed away, as father and mother have passed, as playmates have fallen one by one, the old place holding only memories. Here is my boyhood because the earth is always young and repeats her miracles for the children by my side as it did for me so many many years ago. Yet the miracles are greater now than they were then. They have more meaning. Now are they part of some great order. They are not separate. Without moving my feet, I lay my hands on apples, Virginia creeper, asparagus, marigold, sweet sultan, oxalis, plantain, crab-grass, white clover, all growing securely in one place, and everyone like unto itself alone. Here is the everlasting miracle before my eyes, and all miracles are mysteries. Once I thought I should understand such things when I was “grown up,” but I find myself still a boy.
These three apples on the last of the days of July look fair and sound, partly hidden in the leaves, the deep red colors covering them in broad splashed stripes and relieved by light dots. Yet when I raise the leaves or when I lift the apples apart, I find the burrows of insects. They know that these apples are good. It is astonishing how nature covers up the wounds, how she conceals the sore places, and how fair she makes everything look. Were it not that she covers the depredations of man, the earth would not long remain habitable by him.
Summer is ended. Today the sun is on the equator, and we are at the equinox when nights are equal to the days, as the word testifies. The harvest is over. The apples are no more. Yet the tree still is active and preparing for another year (Fig. 12). The spurs are now thick and stout, bearing sturdy hard leaves. The bud in the center is a big one, already recognized as a fruit-bud: here is the promise of speckled, furrowed, striped apples next August. Thereby I learn that it is not enough to be good to the tree in the year in which I desire its fruit: I must begin the year before, and the year before that, and even back at the time when the tree is planted; and if the tree at planting-time is not a good tree, it will be at a disadvantage perhaps all its life long.
Finally the apple is ripe and ready. At the stem end is the “cavity,” a depression, deep or shallow, according to variety, in which the stem is set. At the blossom end is the “basin,” also with the characteristics of the variety as to depth and width and contour, in which the calyx-lobes persist, and inside the calyx are the remains of the dead stamens and styles; the calyx may be “closed” or “open,” the character being a mark of the particular variety.
Cut the apple through the center lengthwise (Fig. 13); note the curved outline of the core (the pistil) extending half or more across the fruit; if you do not see this outline, cut an apple until you do; carefully open the five cells or compartments and within the parchment walls find the two seeds attached by their points which are directed toward the stem end; perhaps one of the seeds has failed, but probably a cavity marks its place; perhaps both seeds have failed; perhaps the cell has more than two seeds.
Cut an apple cross-wise: note the five radiating cells of the core, the number and attachment of the seeds; note the ten points, imbedded in the flesh, marking the outline of the core. Cut an apple cross-wise above the core and beneath it; note where these points vanish and try to harmonize them with the core-outline as seen in the lengthwise section; probably you will discover why you may not see the core-outline in all the lengthwise sections you make. Before you leave the fruit, note whether single seeds in a cell are the same shape as the two seeds in a cell.
The flesh outside the core-outline is interpreted to be stem structure rather than pistil structure. Sometimes an apple bears a scale-like leaf on its exterior, suggesting that the outer part of the fruit is stem. The older morphologists interpreted the apple flower to comprise a hollowed calyx (calyx-tube) inside which is the pistil and on the rim of which are the petals and stamens. The structure now is regarded as a hollowed receptacle or stem (hypanthium), with the pistil inside, the petals and stamens on its rim. We noted in the flower that the ovary part of the pistil is solidly imbedded in this receptacle, but that the five styles are free. The pear and quince are of similar structure, but the peach, plum and cherry are simple ripened pistils.
Here, in this chapter, we have discovered some of the epochs in the life of the apple. Usually we let the imagination run only to the mature fruit, thinking of the harvest, but in all the weeks before the harvest the apple has been growing and taking form. As these weeks have not been blank to the apple-tree, so shall they not be blank to me.