Fruit

Fruit is a seed-bearing structure of a flowering plant. A fruit is actually a ripened ovary, a component of the flower’s female reproductive structure. Fertilization of the egg, or female sex cell, within the ovary stimulates the ovary to ripen, or mature. Depending on the type of plant, the mature ovary may form a juicy, fleshy fruit, such as a peach, mango, apple, plum, or blueberry. Or it may develop into a dry fruit, such as an acorn, chestnut, or almond. Grains of wheat, corn, or rice also are considered dry fruits. Certain foods commonly termed vegetables, including tomatoes, squash, peppers, and eggplant, technically are fruits because they develop from the ovary of a flower.

Fruits develop from the ovaries of flowers. As the reproductive organs of plants, flowers typically contain both female and male structures. The female part of the flower is located at its center and is called the pistil. Often resembling a tiny vase, the pistil is composed of three regions—a sticky or feathery stigma at the top, a narrow neck called the style in the middle, and the round or oval-shaped ovary at the base. The ovary contains one or more whitish ovules, each of which contains an egg. If the egg is fertilized, the ovule under most conditions matures to become a seed. At maturity, the ripened ovary, or fruit, encloses the ripened ovules, or seeds. The fruit and seeds are typically hundreds or even thousands of times larger than the ovary and ovules from which they develop.

The male parts of the flower are called the stamens. Each stamen consists of a thin stalk, called the filament, capped by the anther, which is a chamber where pollen is produced. Flowers typically have several stamens arranged in various patterns around the pistil.

The process of fruit formation begins with pollination, the transfer of pollen from the anther of one plant to the stigma of another, which prepares the plant for fertilization. Once pollen is deposited on the stigma, fertilization may occur if certain conditions are favorable. For instance, the pollen gran must land on the stigma of a flower of the same or a very closely related species, and the pollen and stigma must be at the right stage of development. The flowers of some plants, such as peas, can be fertilized from their own pollen (known as self-pollination), but most species require pollen from different plants (called cross-pollination) for fertilization to take place.

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