{"id":278,"date":"2014-10-29T14:12:46","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T14:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbisec.com\/?page_id=278"},"modified":"2014-10-29T14:12:46","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T14:12:46","slug":"fruit-salad-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/orbisec.com\/index.php\/fruit-salad-part-iv\/","title":{"rendered":"Fruit Salad Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"

YOUR DAILY DOSE OF BOTANY \u2013 MAY 2013<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fruit Salad Part IV<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Scott Namestnik, snamestnik@orbisec.com<\/a><\/h2>\n

Ready for a final bite of fruit salad?\u00a0 In this column in the past three issues of The Plant Press<\/em>, we\u2019ve looked at fleshy fruit and dry fruit.\u00a0 One thing that all of the types of fruit that we\u2019ve examined to date have had in common is that they all are simple fruits<\/strong>, or fruits that develop from a single carpel or several united carpels.\u00a0 The carpel is the combined female reproductive organ, consisting of the stigma, usually a style, and the ovary.\"Raspberry\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When a single flower has more than one carpel but they are not united, the resulting fruit is known as an aggregate fruit<\/strong>.\u00a0 Aggregate fruits can be fleshy or dry.\u00a0 Examples of dry aggregate fruits would be those that form clusters of achenes and those that form clusters of follicles.\u00a0 Clusters of berries or clusters of drupelets form fleshy aggregate fruits.\u00a0 The raspberry (Rubus<\/em> spp.) is an example of a fleshy aggregate fruit formed from a cluster of drupelets. Things get interesting when the receptacle is incorporated into the aggregate fruit, such as in strawberries (Fragaria<\/em> spp.).\u00a0 In this case, the fruit is considered an aggregate-accessory<\/strong> fruit.\u00a0 Note that in this example, the fleshy red portion is the receptacle, and the \u201cseeds\u201d on the surface are actually not seeds, but instead are individual fruitlets that each contain a single seed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Pineapple\"<\/a>A final type of fruit forms when a cluster of flowers produce fruit that mass together into one conglomerate fruit known as a multiple fruit<\/strong>.\u00a0 Common examples of multiple fruit include mulberries (Morus<\/em> spp.), Osage orange (Maclura pomifera<\/em>), and pineapple (Ananus comosus<\/em>).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All of these fruits have developed to provide different reproductive strategies for the plants on which they grow.\u00a0 Consider the reproductive strategy of a plant the next time you bite into a fruit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you have a question about flowers and fruits\u00a0that you would like answered in a future edition of this column, send me an email at snamestnik@orbisec.com<\/a>.\u00a0 I may not be able to address all requests given the space allotted for this column, but I will answer those that I can.<\/p>\n