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One fruit
contains the seed (which holds the matured ovule), and any
coverings derived from the ovary wall or other flower parts.
Seeds
may be single per fruit (then often called "pits" or "stones"),
or numerous.
Flesh
of the fruit may be pulpy, soft and juicy, or hardened or leathery.
Arils
are appendages which may surround the seed, as in bittersweet, or
resemble an ovary in some gymnosperms like yew and ginkgo.
Simple
vs. Compound:
Simple
fruits come from one pistil in one flower.
Compound fruits come from more
than one pistil in one flower — or — from close clusters
of flowers in an inflorescence.
Aggregates
are compound fruits from one flower which had many pistils, as
in maple, magnolia, rose, blackberry.
Multiples
are compound fruits from inflorescences, usually from closely
clustered heads or spikes of flowers, crowding and growing together
as one mass with maturity (as in mulberry, osage-orange, sweetgum,
sycamore).
Fruit
types:
Drupe:
usually 1-seeded; endocarp stony; matured ovary wall fleshy (as
in cherry, blackgum)
Berry:
from one ovary, with several immersed seed (as in blueberry, pawpaw)
Pome:
from one ovary with fused carpels, the "skin" derived
from a hypanthium which covered ovary (as in apple, servicebeny)
Hip:
in roses, an aggregate of achenes, surrounded by a fleshy-walled
receptacle
Achene:
from a simple pistil; a small, hard fruit with a thin pericarp or
seed coat; as in sycamore, rose, sweetshrub "seeds"
Samara:
a winged achene-like fruit, as in maple, ash
Nut:
a hard, generally 1-seeded fruit partially or wholly enclosed in
a husk (involucre), as in hickory, chestnut, oak
Legume:
a one-chambered fruit from a simple pistil; splits down two sutures;
in Fabaceae (legume) family
Pod (follicle):
a one-chambered fruit from a simple pistil; splits down one side,
as in magnolia, yellowroot
Capsule:
usually several-chambered fruit; from a compound pistil; splits
along 2 or more sutures, as in rhododendron, buckeye
Strobile:
a conelike fruit derived from a spike or catkin-like inflorescence;
composed of nutlets growing between protective layers of bracts;
in birches and alders
Cone:
the fruit of gymnosperms such as pine, spruce; the seeds are matured
ovules held between bracts, not in ovaries
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