Fruit: The Fall Harvest

FRIENDS OF EDGEWOOD NATURAL PRESERVE

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FRUIT—THE FALL HARVEST

By Toni Corelli and Ken Himes

Late summer and fall are the best times to notice the fruits on the flowering plants at Edgewood. The fruit is the fertilized, seed-containing structure of a flowering plant. It is actually the “ripened ovary,” part of the flower’s female reproductive structure. Fruits are grouped into 2 kinds, simple and compound.

In the examples of fruits given below, we include those commonly found at the market, as well as those from woody plants found at Edgewood, shown in bold-italic font.

Simple Fruits

Simple fruits result from one flower with a simple or compound ovary with only one pistil. There are 2 types, fleshy and dry.

Fleshy Fruits

In fleshy fruits, all or most of the ovary wall (pericarp) is soft and fleshy at maturity. There are several types of fleshy fruits.

berry - true berries have a fleshy or leathery outer wall and a fleshy pulp; e.g. avocado, grapes, huckleberries, cranberries, blueberries, tomatoes, kiwi, banana, coffee, passion fruit, persimmon, pomegranate, pepper, blue witch, hillside and canyon gooseberries, chaparral currant, hairy honeysuckle, English ivy, Pacific madrone, oak mistletoe, western poison oak, coast silk tassel, common and creeping snowberries.

drupe - pitted or stone fruits usually composed of two layers: an outer fleshy layer (exocarp) and an inner stony layer or pit (endocarp). Usually the outer fleshy part is eaten, but in the almond and pistachio the seed enclosed in the pit is the edible part. Examples include plum, apricot, cherry, coconut, peach, California bay, brown and American dogwoods, blue elderberry, holly-leaved cherry, western leatherwood, Kings Mountain and hairy manzanitas, olive, oso berry, California and hoary coffeeberries, spiny redberry, wax myrtle.

hesperidium - actually a berry except with a tough, aromatic rind; e.g. citrus fruits (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, kumquat). Each section of a citrus fruit is a carpel.

pepo - formed from an inferior ovary as in the gourd family and have a hard or leathery rind on the outside and a fleshy inner layer; e.g. watermelon, cantaloupe, squash, pumpkin and cucumber.

Dry Fruits

In dry fruits, the ovary wall (pericarp) becomes dry and often hard at maturity. Dry fruits can be grouped into 2 types, dehiscent and indehiscent.

Dehiscent Dry Fruits

These fruits open to release the seeds by means of valves or sutures.

capsule - the most common fruit type, capsules are dry dehiscent structures that split from the tip or side, or by holes, pores, or sutures. Capsules are produced by plants from many families including Evening Primrose, Figwort, Pink, Phlox, Poppy, and Primrose. At Edgewood we have California buckeye, buck brush ceanothus, chaparral mallow, blue gum, sticky monkeyflower, rock-rose, peak rush-rose, arroyo willow, yerba santa.

follicle - a dry dehiscent fruit that splits on one side only. It may contain one or many seeds; e.g. columbine, larkspur, milkweed, peony, Pacific ninebark.

legume - a dry dehiscent pod that splits on two sides; e.g. alfalfa, licorice, pea, peanut, redbud, beans, wisteria and other Pea family members.

silique - a dry dehiscent fruit, long and thin, that splits down two sides, and has a papery membrane between the two halves; e.g. many members of the Mustard family.

silicle - a dry dehiscent fruit that is less than twice as long as broad; e.g. many members of the Mustard family.

Indehiscent Dry Fruits

These fruits do not open, but break down through natural causes to expose their seeds.

achene - a dry indehiscent fruit that has a hard outer seed coat with one seed enclosed; e.g. all Sunflower family members, chamise, California buckwheat, sycamore.

caryopsis - similar to an achene but the outer coat is often indistinguishable from the seed; e.g. Grass family.

nut - a hard, dry, indehiscent fruit, usually with a single seed; e.g. oaks, Northern California black walnut.

nutlet - a small nut; one of the lobes or sections of the mature ovary in some plants of the Borage and Mint families; e.g. pitcher sage.

samara - a dry indehiscent fruit that has part of the fruit wall extended to form a wing.

Compound Fruits

Compound fruits can be aggregate, multiple, or accessory fruits.

Aggregate Fruits

These fruits develop from a single flower with numerous simple pistils that form a cluster of several ripened ovaries. Often the fruit is attached to the receptacle or floral tube (hypanthium) of the flower.

achenes - aggregation of achenes that develop from a single flower with multiple pistils, each ovary developing into a single achene; e.g. pipestems.

drupelet - a small drupe found in aggregations produced by a single flower; e.g. bramble fruits (raspberry and Himalayan and California blackberries) and loganberry.

hip - a fleshy fruit containing achenes, as in all Rosa species of the Rose family.

Multiple Fruits

These fruits consist of many tightly clustered ripened ovaries formed from a cluster of flowers. Examples are fig, mulberry, pineapple, and breadfruit.

Accessory Fruits

These are fruits produced by one or more ripened ovaries in combination with tissues from some other floral part or tissue in which the “true fruit” is embedded in the stem or calyx (sepals). Examples are apple, and pear, and strawberry.

pome - a fleshy fruit with a thin skin that is formed from the floral cup (hypanthium). They have a fleshy edible tissue on the outside; e.g. apple, pear, quince, firethorn, cotoneaster, pyracantha, English hawthorn, toyon.

pseudocarp - false fruit; it does not actually contain the seeds, but the seeds (achenes) are on the outside of the fleshy tissue. The fleshy tissue is the receptacle of the flower; e.g. strawberry.

References

Corelli, T., 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve, Second Edition. Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.

Harris, J.G. and Harris, M.S., 1994. Plant Identification Terminology and Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.

Hickman, J.C., ed. 1993. The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Internet References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit

www.biology.ucok.edu/personalpages/Bidlack/Botany/PDF/FRUITS24.PDF

http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/geos581/lec_14.html

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761576964/Fruit.html

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Fruits.html

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/fruitid1.htm

http://www.bergen.org/AAST/projects/Botany/fruit.html