In botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary—together with seeds—of a flowering plant. In many species, the fruit incorporates the ripened ovary and surrounding tissues. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds. Evolution has led plants to adopt certain basic mechanisms, seemingly without close regard to the tissues involved. No one terminology really fits the enormous variety that is found among plant fruits. Botanical terminology for fruits is inexact and will remain so. In cuisine, when discussing fruit as fo ...

Including:

• Fruit - Botanic fruits and culinary fruits
• Fruit - Fruit development
• Fruit - Simple fruit
• Fruit - Aggregate fruit
• Fruit - Multiple fruit
• Fruit - Seedless Fruits
• Fruit - Seed dissemination
• Fruit - Uses

Read more here: » Fruit: Encyclopedia - Fruit

Variations in fruit structures largely relate to dissemination (called dispersal) of the seeds they contain. Some fruits have coats covered with spikes or hooked burrs, either to prevent themselves from being eaten by animals or to stick to the hairs of animals, using them as dispersal agents. Other fruits are elongated and flattened out naturally and so become thin, like wings or helicopter blades. This is an evolutionary mechanism to incre ...

See also:

Fruit, Fruit - Botanic fruits and culinary fruits, Fruit - Fruit development, Fruit - Simple fruit, Fruit - Aggregate fruit, Fruit - Multiple fruit, Fruit - Seedless Fruits, Fruit - Seed dissemination, Fruit - Uses

Read more here: » Fruit: Encyclopedia II - Fruit - Seed dissemination

After an ovule is fertilized in a process known as pollination, the ovary begins to expand. The petals of the flower fall off and the ovule develops into a seed. The ovary eventually comes to form, along with other parts of the flower in many cases, a structure surrounding the seed or seeds that is the fruit. Fruit development continues until the seeds have matured. With some multiseeded fruits the extent of development of the flesh of the fruit is propo ...

See also:

Fruit, Fruit - Botanic fruits and culinary fruits, Fruit - Fruit development, Fruit - Simple fruit, Fruit - Aggregate fruit, Fruit - Multiple fruit, Fruit - Seedless Fruits, Fruit - Seed dissemination, Fruit - Uses

Read more here: » Fruit: Encyclopedia II - Fruit - Fruit development

Many foods are botanically fruits, but are treated as vegetables in cooking. These include cucurbits (e.g., squash and pumpkin), maize, tomato, cucumber, aubergine (eggplant), and sweet pepper, along with nuts, and some spices, such as allspice, nutmeg and chiles. Rarely, culinary "fruits" are not fruits in the botanical sense. For example, rhubarb may be considered a fruit, though only the astringent stalk or petiole is edible. In the commercial world, European Union rules define carrot as a fruit for the purposes of ...

See also:

Fruit, Fruit - Botanic fruits and culinary fruits, Fruit - Fruit development, Fruit - Simple fruit, Fruit - Aggregate fruit, Fruit - Multiple fruit, Fruit - Seedless Fruits, Fruit - Seed dissemination, Fruit - Uses

Read more here: » Fruit: Encyclopedia II - Fruit - Botanic fruits and culinary fruits