Coming up Roses
Take an apple with its stem pointing up and cut it in half along its ‘equator’. You will expose the seeds enclosed in five chambers of the ovary arranged like an asterisk. This pentagonal symmetry abounds in the rose family. Take other orchard fruit – pears, plums, cherries, apricots and almonds. All of these are rosaceous plants with flowers that are fragile five-petalled beauties for a few fleeting weeks in spring. A shiny fat rose hip is crowned with five pointy sepals. In France the fruit of the medlar has coined the common name based on its resemblance to a dog’s nether end. If you prefer not to see that then look for the pentagon!
