Fruity Science? Are you fruit and nuts? No, here are a few tasty science snippets about fruit to get your teeth into!
Fleshy Fruit
A fruit is the fleshy part of a plant that develops from the flower. A fruit has the important job of carrying the seed(s). It acts like a bodyguard, protecting the seed(s) from harm. It also helps to spread the seed(s) to a place where they can grow into a new plant.
Sowing Seeds
Inside each seed there is a baby plant called an embryo, along with enough food for the early days of the baby plant’s life. Plants put a lot of time and energy into producing fruit because their future depends on it.
Drupe Fruit
Plums and cherries are called drupe (or stone) fruit. They are called drupes because they normally have one single, hard stone inside.
Berry Confusing ...
A berry doesn’t have a stone. Instead, a berry has one or more seeds embedded in its flesh.
Gooseberries and currants are berries. Did you know that a tomato is a berry? Pumpkins are also a type of berry, called a pepo.
Some fruits are thought of as berries, but botanists (people who study plants) don’t classify them as berries...
Berry Shocking!
Blackberries and raspberries are not berries at all! They are made up of individual, small fruits, called drupelets, and each one contains a single seed.
Strange Strawberries
The strawberry is the only fruit to have the seeds on the outside, instead of inside, so a strawberry is not really a berry or a fruit at all!
On average there are 200 seeds on a strawberry and each seed is genetically different from its neighbour.
Did you know that freeze dried strawberries were one of the early foods provided by NASA to feed astronauts in space?
So Summer Fruits really are an 'out of this world' eating experience!
