Some Special Forms of Fruit

The dried or fleshy ripened ovary of an angiosperm contains its seed or seeds. The following fruits are technically fruits: apricots, bananas, grapes, bean pods, corn grains, tomatoes, cucumbers, acorns and almonds (in their shells). But the term is generally reserved for ripened ovaries that are either sweet and succulent or pulpy. 

Botanically, a fruit may be a mature ovary and its associated parts. It always contains seeds, which have developed from the enclosed ovule after fertilisation, although development without fertilisation, called parthenocarpy, is known, for instance, in bananas. 

A flower undergoes various changes following fertilization: the anthers and stigma wither, the petals drop off, and therefore the sepals may also be shed or modified; the ovary enlarges, and therefore the ovules become seeds, each containing an embryo plant. Fruits are largely responsible for protecting and disseminating their source.

Fruits are essential dietary fibre, vitamins (especially vitamin C), and antioxidants. Although fresh fruits are subject to spoilage, their period is often extended by refrigeration or removing oxygen from their storage or packaging containers. Fruits are usually processed into juices, jams, and jellies and preserved by dehydration, canning, fermentation, and pickling. 

Like those from bayberries (wax myrtles) and ivory nuts from the thorny fruits of a South American palm species (Phytelephas macrocarpa), Waxes are essential fruit-derived products. Various drugs come from fruits, like morphine from the fruit of the Papaver somniferum.

Apomixis

Apomixis is agamogenesis without fertilisation in botany. Meiosis is not mentioned in this definition. As a result, apomixis has never been used to “natural asexual reproduction,” such as propagation from cuttings or leaves. Still, apomixis was defined as replacing the seed with a plantlet or the flower with bulbils. Genetically, apocalyptically produced offspring are identical to the parent plant.

Some authors included all sorts of agamogenesis within apomixis, but that generalisation of the term has since died out.

In flowering plants, the term “apomixis” is often utilised in various restricted senses to mean agamospermy, known as a clonal reproduction through seeds. Although agamospermy could theoretically occur in gymnosperms, it appears to be absent therein group.

Apogamy may be a related term that has had various meanings over time. 

Parthenocarpy

The parthenocarpy of fruit is the non-fertilisation of ovules in botany and horticulture, resulting in seedless fruit. Stenospermocarpy can also produce seedless fruit, but the seeds are aborted while the fruit is still small. 

Occasionally, in nature, a mutation can cause parthenocarpy (or stenospermocarpy); when it affects all flowers, the plant can not sexually reproduce[citation needed] but could be ready to propagate by apomixis or by vegetative means. 

This includes many citrus varieties that undergo nuclear embryonic for copy, rather than solely amphimixis, and may yield seedless fruits.

However, the parthenocarpy of some fruits on a plant could also be helpful. Up to twenty of the fruits of untamed parsnips are parthenocarpic. Certain herbivores prefer the seedless madnep fruit, then function as a “decoy defence” against seed predation. Utah juniper features a similar defence against bird feeding. 

It can also be advantageous to a plant to be able to produce seedless fruit when pollination is unsuccessful, as this provides food for the plant’s seed dispersers. When seeds are dispersed without fruit, the plants reproduce. 

 Plants that don’t require pollination or other stimulation to supply parthenocarpic fruit have vegetative parthenocarpy. 

The plants that move from one part of the planet to another may not always be surrounded by their pollinators, and therefore the lack of pollinators has spurred human cultivation of parthenocarpic varieties. Some parthenocarpic types are developed as genetically modified organisms.

Parthenocarpy is usually claimed to be the equivalent of parthenogenesis in animals. That is incorrect because parthenogenesis may be a method of agamogenesis, with embryo formation without fertilisation, while parthenocarpy involves the development of fruit without seeds.

Polyembryony

The occurrence of multiple embryos emerging from a single mother is called polyembryony.

The embryos resulting from an equivalent egg are just like each other but are genetically diverse from the oldsters. 

The genetic difference between the offspring and therefore the parents, but the similarity among siblings, are significant distinctions between polyembryony and, therefore, the process of budding and typical amphimixis. 

Polyembryony can occur in humans, leading to identical twins, though the method is random and at a coffee frequency. Polyembryony is a common phenomenon in vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants.

Conclusion:

Fruits are usually the best and excellent source of various essential vitamins and minerals. Fruits are high in fibre content. Fruits provide a vast range of different health-boosting antioxidants.

There are also various benefits to consuming fruits and vegetables in our daily diet.

From the healthy plate example, we know that fruits and their associated parts will not supply us with everything our body needs.