TYPES OF FRUITS
By Aliza Habib
Fruits are classified according to the arrangement from which they derive. There are four types—simple, aggregate, multiple, and accessory fruits. The name fruit is often applied loosely to all edible plant products and specifically to the fleshy fruits, some of which (e.g., eggplant, tomatoes, and squash) are commonly called vegetables.
fruit history
In common language usage, "fruit" normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of a plant that are sweet or sour, and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. On the other hand, in botanical usage, "fruit" includes many structures that are not commonly called "fruits", such as bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes, and wheat grains.
The Four Kinds of Fruit
simple fruit
Containing one or more carpels, simple fruits, take roots from a single ovary and may or may not take in further modified accessory floral (perianth) structures. It will be either fleshy or dry; fleshy fruits include the berry, drupe, pome, pepo, and hesperidium.
aggregate fruit
Aggregate fruits form from single flowers that have multiple carpels which are not joined together, i.e. each pistil contains one carpel. Each pistil forms a fruitlet, and collectively the fruitlets are called an etaerio. Four types of aggregate fruits include etaerios of achenes, follicles, drupelets, and berries.
multiple fruit
A multiple fruit is one formed from a cluster of flowers (called an inflorescence). Each flower produces a fruit, but these mature into a single mass.
Examples are the pineapple, fig, mulberry, osage-orange, and breadfruit.
Examples are the pineapple, fig, mulberry, osage-orange, and breadfruit.
accessory fruit
Occasionally called as false fruit, spurious fruit, pseudo fruit, or pseudo carp, as far as accessory fruit is concerned, some of the flesh is derived not from the ovary, although from some flanking tissue exterior to the carpel.