Polycarpy in the Apple. Yellow Newtown apple, having seven carpels, Natural size.
latter specimen had six calyx lobes, though the multiplication of carpels seems to take place as a rule independently of the other floral organs. An extra sepal, or possibly a bract, below the calyx and on the side of the tube, is not so very uncommon on fruits otherwise normal in structure and persists in the fruit as a scale on the side of the apple, usually deforming it somewhat.
I have never observed the suppression of carpels in apples of the ordinary varieties, though it may occur in some of the so-called seedless or coreless forms. In case one or more of the pistils fail to receive pollen while the remainder are successfully pollinated, the corresponding carpels appear always to develop more or less with the growth of the fruit, though they remain empty.[1]
Double apples, though comparatively rare, have occasionally been described and two such fruits were found at Pullman last season, one in the orchard of the experiment station, the other in an orchard adjoining the college campus, while a third was received from Wenatchee.
- ↑ Since these notes were written a student has discovered specimens of the Rome and Gano varieties having four carpels and very rarely three carpels; also seven carpels in the latter variety.
