Trichocereus purpureopilosus fruit     11/17/18
You saw the flowers that led to these fruit in the previous gallery. The larger fruit is approaching tennis ball size. The remains of the flowers are attached. You can be sure of the ripeness of the seeds if you wait for the fruit to split open (technically "dehisce") as here. Just like the meat (?) of apples, pears, etc, the meat - the white stuff - corresponds biologically to umbilical cords. Each little black seed was connected by a white umbilical cord to a structure corresponding to the placenta. We were served cactus fruit in a restaurant in Ecuador. It was very good. In China, "dragon fruit" of a pound or more is available everywhere, costing about $1. Also very good.
I bet you thought that plants and animals are really different. Plants don't have placentas! Wrong-o. This all adds weight to Darwin's speculation in the "Origin" that he could be convinced of the fact that life came about only once, and everything alive evolved from that once. His argument in the "Origin" was that since plants and animals are killed by the same poisons, maybe they both came from one act of creation. Too bad the plants hogged the metabolic path to chlorophyll. Wouldn't it be neat if you could feed yourself by sitting in the sun for a while, sipping some drink of inorganic salts? Would humanity invent war to get the best sun exposure?   (17/24)   

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