| Fruit is a seed bearing structure of a flowering plant. Fruits develop from a female part of the plant, the ovary of the flower. Depending on the type of plant, the fruit may be juicy and fleshy, like a peach, plum, apple, or blueberry. Or the fruit may be a dry fruit, such as an acorn, chesnut, wheat, corn, or rice. Certain foods thought of as vegetables, including tomatoes, squash, peppers, and eggplant, are really fruits because they develop from the ovary of a flower. |
| Fruits are vital to humans. Over 430 milllion tons of fruit are produces each year. Lack of fruits may cause scurvy. Many species of mammals, birds, and insects rely on fruit as an essential component of their diet. Fruits disperse seeds so that more plants may grow. |
| FLESHY FRUITS Pale to intense shades of orange, red, yellow, and even purple can be found in fleshy fruits, while dry fruits tend to be colored in tones of brown. |
| Fruits are composed of three layers. The outter most layer is calles the exocarp; the middle layer the mesocarp; and the iner layer, the endocarp. these three regions together are called the pericarp. A peach sut in half reveals the three layers: The solf, fuzzy skin is the outter layer, the juicy, meaty part is the middle, and the pit is the inner layer. |
There are many different types of berries. A true berry has soft layers with a think skin. True berries include the tomato, pepper, eggplant, and grapes. Some fruits with the word berry in their names are, such as strawberry and raspberry, devlop differently and there fore aret not really berries at all |
| All citrus fruits, including oranges, lemons, and grapefruits are hesperidiums. A pome is a fleshy fruit composed of the mature ovary along with other flower parts. Apples, pears, and quinces are pomes. |
| In flowers with more than one pistil, the pistils are adjacent and each develops into a tiny fruit, or fruitlet. The clumped fruitlets from a fruit, such as a raspberry, are called an aggregate fruit. each bump on a rapsbeerry represents the ripened ovary from one cluster. In plants such as the pineapple, several flowers are clustered on one stem. The frutlets combine into a single larger fruit called a multiple fruit. Other multiple fruits include mulberries adn Osage oranges. |
| fruit information |