What Exactly is A Fruit

Some foods we commonly think of as vegetables, such as the tomato or pea pod, are actually, botanically speaking, fruits. Peppers, squash, eggplant, cucumber, and sweet corn are also technically fruits. Fruits are formed after fertilization as the ovary ripens; while it develops, the other flower parts wither and die. The wall of the ovary becomes the pericarp (the outer layer of the fruit) and the fertilized ovules turn into seeds. Fruits can be fleshy or dry.

Fleshy Fruits
The drupes (olive, plum, cherry) develop from a single ovary with a single ovule that becomes the pit. Pome fruits (apple, pear) grow from a compound ovary with many ovules and have distinct chambers with many seeds. Berries (tomato, pepper, grape) also have many seeds. Pepo fruits (melon, pumpkin, squash, cucumber) are fleshy with many seeds and a hard rind. Raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries are fleshy aggregate fruits that form from the fusion of many flowers. Parthenocarpic fruits do not develop seeds and can occur naturally (banana) or be chemically induced (oranges, watermelon).

Dry Fruits
Dry fruits that break open to free the seeds while still attached to the plant are described as dehiscent. Some examples are legumes (pea pod), which develop from a single ovary that splits down both sides and capsules that grow from a compound ovary and open at the top (poppy). The pericarp of indehiscent fruits remains closed until after it falls off the plant; examples of these types of fruits are corn and nuts.