In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the pip (UK), pit (US), stone, or pyrena) of hardened endocarp with a seed (kernel) inside. Drupes do not split open to release the seed, i.e., they are indehiscent.<ref name="Stern">Template:Cite book</ref> These fruits usually develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries<ref name="Stern" /> (polypyrenous drupes are exceptions).
The definitive characteristic of a drupe is that the hard, woody (lignified) stone is derived from the ovary wall of the flower. In an aggregate fruit, which is composed of small, individual drupes (such as a raspberry), each individual is termed a drupelet, and may together form an aggregate fruit.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Such fruits are often termed berries, although botanists use a different definition of berry. Other fleshy fruits may have a stony enclosure that comes from the seed coat surrounding the seed, but such fruits are not drupes.
Flowering plants that produce drupes include coffee, jujube, mango, olive, most palms (including açaí, date, sabal and oil palms), pistachio, white sapote, cashew, and all members of the genus Prunus, including the almond, apricot, cherry, damson, peach, nectarine, and plum.
The term drupaceous is applied to a fruit having the structure and texture of a drupe, but which does not precisely fit the definition of a drupe.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
DescriptionEdit
The boundary between a drupe and a berry is not always clear. Thus, some sources describe the fruit of species from the genus Persea, which includes the avocado, as a drupe,<ref name="FNA">Template:Cite book</ref> others describe avocado fruit as a berry.<ref name=Arms08/> One definition of berry requires the endocarp to be less than Template:Convert thick, other fruits with a stony endocarp being drupes.<ref name=Been10>Template:Cite book</ref> In marginal cases, terms such as drupaceous or drupe-like may be used.<ref name=Been10/>
Template:AnchorA freestone is a drupe with a stone that can easily be removed from the flesh.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:AnchorA clingstone is a drupe having a stone which cannot be easily removed from the flesh.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A tryma is a nut-like drupe. Hickory nuts (Carya) and walnuts (Juglans) in the Juglandaceae family grow within an outer husk; these fruits are technically drupes or drupaceous nuts, not true botanical nuts.<ref name=Arms08>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Many drupes, with their sweet, fleshy outer layer, attract the attention of animals as food, and the plant benefits from the resulting dispersal of its seeds.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ExamplesEdit
Typical drupes include apricots, olives, loquat, peaches, plums, cherries, mangoes, pecans, and amlas (Indian gooseberries). Other examples include sloe (Prunus spinosa) and ivy (Hedera helix).<ref>Clapham, A.R., Tutin, T.G. and Warburg, E.F. 1968. Excursion Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University PressTemplate:ISBN</ref>
The coconut is a drupe, its mesocarp a dry or fibrous husk, its endocarp a hard shell.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Bramble fruits such as the blackberry and the raspberry are aggregates of drupelets. The fruit of blackberries and raspberries comes from a single flower whose pistil is made up of a number of free carpels.<ref name="woodlands">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> However, mulberries, which closely resemble blackberries, are not aggregates but multiple fruits.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Some drupes occur in clusters, as in palms. Examples include dates, Jubaea chilensis<ref>C. Michael Hogan. 2008. Chilean Wine Palm: Jubaea chilensis, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg Template:Webarchive</ref> in central Chile and Washingtonia filifera in the Sonoran Desert of North America.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Many gymnosperms like cycads, ginkgos and some cypresses have drupe-like "fruits".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
GalleryEdit
- NIEdot325.jpg
Assorted drupes
- Autumn Red peaches.jpg
The peach is a typical drupe (stone fruit)
- Prunus - Elena.JPG
'Elena', a freestone prune plum
- Nectarine stone.jpg
The pit of a nectarine
- Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) fruits.jpg
Unripe drupes of black pepper
- Black Butte blackberry.jpg
'Black Butte' blackberry, a bramble fruit of aggregated drupelets
- Arecanut.jpg
A ripe areca nut
- Ginkgo biloba 007.jpg
Ginkgo "fruits", often noted as drupe-like
See alsoEdit
- Pome (polypyrenous drupe)
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Identification of Major Fruit Types (archived)
- Fruits Called Nuts (archived)
- Template:Cite NIE