Download Plant Structure and function

Understand the structure and functions of a plant
Primary Agriculture
NQF Level 2
Unit Standard No: 116057
21
Mature fruit are classified in different categories based on the
structure of the fruit wall. Different parts of the flower can,
however, also take part in determining the fruit structure.
6.1
20. There are different types
of fruits available. Say
what type of fruit the
following are and explain
why you think it is that
specific type of fruit.
Peach, pumpkin, tomato,
soybean, strawberry, fig.
Simple fruit –fruit developing from a single ovary from a
single flower.
Single, fleshy fruit – the pericarp is soft and fleshy.
• Drupe or stone fruit. – like peach and mango. The
pericarp can be divided into exocarp,(the peel of the peach
and mango) mesocarp (the soft edible part) and the
endocarp, ( hard, stone-like or leather-like layer
surrounding the seed).
• Berry – also a fleshy fruit, but the mesocarp and endocarp
are both fleshy and not distinguishable from each other as
in the grape berry, tomatoes, papayas, avocado, coffee,
blueberries, gooseberries, and many others.
• Pepo – the fruit of the cucurbit family like pumpkins,
cucumber and watermaelon are actually also berries, but
the carpels are imbedded in the concave receptacle
(hypogynous or inferior ovary) that takes part in the
formation of the fruit wall.
• Pome – like the pepo the fruit also derives from an inferior
ovary with the receptacle taking part in the formation of
the fleshy fruit wall, but it also has a firm, partly woody
endocarp surrounding the seeds.
Single dry fruit - in dry fruits the pericarp in the mature fruit
is a dry, leathery or papery structure and the three layers are
not distinguishable.
• Nut – an indehiscent (not opening) fruit consisting of a single
carpel as in the nuts falling from oak trees.
• Achene –an indehiscent fruit consisting of two carpels as in
the sunflower fruit (mostly called a seed).
• Capsule –a single, dry dehiscent fruit, usually consisting of
more the one carpel and as the classification indicates, the
mature fruit dehisces (opens by itself) and the seeds are
distributed as in the case of the Strelitzia fruit depicted in the
figure above. Capsules are also found in Datura and fruit of
orchids.
• Pod or legume – a dehiscent fruit, but consists on one carpel
only as in the case of a pea pod, a bean, soybean most of the
acacias.
6.2 Aggregate fruit –Derive from a single flower but is made up
of a number of separate ovaries on the same receptacle like
the fruit of the strawberry consisting of an aggregation of
small drupelets.
6.3
Multiple fruit – A collection of fruit on a common
inflorescence axis as in the syconium of the fig where a great
number of achenes deriving from minute flowers are collected
in a concave , fleshy inflorescence axis. In the malberry
(Morus) and the pineapple,(Ananas) a collection of fleshy fruit
and flower parts are collected on a common axis.
Version: 01
Version Date: July 2006