The 12 most important types of fruits, and their characteristics

Fruits are an essential part of our diet, because according to the Spanish Federation of Associations of Exporting Producers of Fruits and Vegetables (FEPEX), each Spanish citizen consumes about 90 kilos of fruit per year, investing in this type of food approximately 139 euros per year (about 165 Dollars).

In addition, the consumption of fruit by households increased by 1.5% in 2019, heading the list of consumption by citrus (oranges and lemons, with 28% of total consumption) and closely followed by bananas, kiwis and other fruits exotic. In general, the cultivation and purchase of fruits moves more than 6,300 million euros in many places.

Beyond these commercial data, there is a world of fruits to discover further from the fridge. From both a biological and physiological point of view, fruits are the structures that allow plant life, thus perpetuating ecosystems as we know them. Immerse yourself with us in this space, where we tell you the types of fruits and their characteristics. We assure you that, after reading these lines, you will no longer see them as mere food.

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The types of fruits of plants, classified

The fruit, defined as the organ from the flower that contains the seeds, is a biological structure that is believed to have appeared on the planet more than 174 million years ago. Various theories speculate that these fleshy compounds arose based on evolutionary pressure, since plants must have prevent living beings from feeding on their vegetative part, and in turn, disseminate their seeds through the environment in a way effective.

For these reasons, it is not random that fruits are delicious to us. They are made for this, since they have sugars such as glucose or fructose, which sweeten our palate and make us want to consume more. After all, vertebrates are nothing more than progeny transport vehicles for plants, because in a natural world, we expel the seeds of the fruits with the feces in environments different.

Beyond all this evolutionary and biological conglomerate, the physiology of the fruits defines what type they belong to. Up to 5 types can be distinguished according to their characteristics and certain parameters. We show you all below.

1. According to the nature of the pericarp

The pericarp is the outer part of the fruit that surrounds the seed, or to better understand each other, the fleshy portion. If we imagine in our mind the cross section of a peach, From the inside out we will see the "bone" or seed, the endocarp (the area closest to the bone), the mesocarp (the meat of the fruit) and the epicarp, the final cover that gives the color and texture to the fruit.

Depending on the nature of the pericarp, a fruit can be dry or fleshy. A dry fruit, as its name indicates, differs from a fleshy one in that it contains less than 50% water in its natural composition. In this group we find almonds, hazelnuts, cashews and many other examples.

The fleshy fruits, on the other hand, present a juicy or fibrous pericarp, with abundant pulp or meat that stores water inside.. As much as a dried fruit (such as a raisin) has almost no water in its structure, it is still a fleshy fruit, since its content of this liquid was naturally greater than 50%.

2. According to the number of seeds it contains

The seed is defined as each of the bodies that are part of the fruit that gives rise to a new plant. In addition to being a biological structure of great interest, the number of seeds enclosed within each one of them is also an important differential factor when taking into account the types of fruits in nature.

Monosperm fruits are those that contain a single seed inside, such as the aforementioned peach, a mango or an olive. On the other hand, polysperms carry more than one seed inside, and many more examples come to mind here: bananas, oranges, watermelons, papayas, strawberries...etc. Any fruit that has "pips", from a botanical point of view, is polysperm.

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3. Depending on whether they release (or not) the seed

We are entering a slightly more complex field, since this group cannot be elucidated in such a simple way just by observing the external appearance of the fruit. From a purely botanical point of view, dehiscence is defined as the spontaneous opening of a plant structure, once it reaches maturity, to release its content. So that, if the fruit "breaks" by itself to release the plant progeny, we are dealing with a dehiscent structure.

While this is not as common within the general collective thought, an example of a dehiscent structure could be the pod of a legume, as it opens spontaneously to let the seeds fall into the floor. Depending on the way the fruit breaks, the types of dehiscence reach a dizzying number of terms: poricidal, septicidal, transverse, elastic... the variety is endless.

On the other hand, the indehiscent fruits are those that cannot be opened "by magic" to release the seeds, and therefore Therefore, they have to reckon with being broken by falling, rotting, or being preyed on by animals so that plant progeny can germinate under land. Commonly consumed fruits do come to mind here: watermelons, citrus fruits, bananas and basically all the fruits that are consumed in the general market.

4. According to the parts of the flower that intervene in its formation

After the fertilization of an ovule (located in the flower of the plant), some structures of the flower disappear, which dry and fall, to give rise to the fruit from the ovary. Depending on the parts of the flower involved in this formation, we can distinguish the following groups:

• Simple: a single ovary gives rise to the fruit. This is the case of the strawberry tree (Arbustus unedo).
• Polycarpic: group of simple fruits. The fruit of the magnolia tree (Magnolia grandiflora) is an example of this.
• Complex: parts of the flower beyond the ovary are involved in the formation of the fruit. As an example, we have strawberries.
• Synanthocarpic: set of fruits that come from an inflorescence.

5. According to the number of carpels involved in its formation

The carpels are modified leaves that form the female reproductive part of the flower of angiosperm plants.. A set of carpels is known as a gynoecium, and this, in turn, may be composed of one or more pistils (which are the structural unit formed by the ovary, style, and stigma). Beyond these complex terms, depending on the number of carpels that form the fruit, we can find different types of them:

• Monocarpic: the fruit comes from a single carpel.
• Polycarpic: the fruit comes from more than one carpel.

Of course, the classification of polycarpic fruits is much more complicated, since these they can be apocarpic or syncarpic, and within the latter group, open or closed. Nor do we want to explain each of these groupings, as we would be incurring in an overly complex botanical lesson. The general idea of ​​this classification criterion should be the following: a peach is a monocarpic fruit, since it comes from a single carpel. On the other hand, a custard apple is polycarpic, since the sutures of the numerous carpels that compose it can be seen on the surface of the fruit.

Summary

Incredible true? It was very difficult to imagine, before reading these lines, that the world of fruit types contained such an intricate physiological complexity. The human being has a fascinating tendency to compartmentalize everything that surrounds him, whether or not it is of specific use. Even so, and from a merely utilitarian level, what matters to people who are not botanists is whether a fruit it is dry or fleshy or if it has a single seed or many, as this affects us when it comes to consuming it properly direct.

Beyond the shopping cart, These classification criteria are of essential importance for the study of botany and of living beings in general., since certain features as specific as these allow us to make dichotomous keys, that is, tools that facilitate classifying organisms through a series of simple steps.

Bibliographic references:

• Consumption of fruits and vegetables, Spanish Federation of Associations of Producers-Exporters of Fruits, Vegetables, Flowers and Live Plants (FEPEX). Collected on October 24 in https://www.fepex.es/datos-del-sector/consumo-frutas-hortalizas
• Fruits, Polytechnic University of Valencia, UPV. Collected on October 24 in http://www.euita.upv.es/varios/biologia/web_frutos/Frutos%20verdaderos.htm#:~:text=Frutos%20monoc%C3%A1rpicos%3A%20cuando%20proceden%20de%20un%20gineceo%20monocarpelar.&text=El%20fruto%20procede%20de%20una, gynoecium%20formed%20by%20several%20carpels.
• Types of fruits, University of Granada. UGR.es. Collected on October 24 in http://www.ugr.es/~mcasares/Organografia/Fruto/Tipos%20de%20frutos%20marcos.htm