Information About

Drupe




In Botany , a drupe is a type of Fruit in which an outer fleshy part ( Exocarp or skin and Mesocarp or flesh) surrounds a shell (the ''pit'' or ''stone'') of hardened Endocarp with a Seed inside. These fruits develop from a single Carpel , and mostly from Flower s with Superior Ovaries . The definitive characteristic of a drupe is that the hard, lignified ''stone'' (or pit) derives from the ovary wall of the flower.

Other fleshy fruits may have a stony enclosure that comes from the seed coat surrounding the seed. These fruits are not drupes.

Some Flowering Plant s which produce drupes are:

The term stone fruit can be a synonym for "drupe" or, more typically, it can mean just the fruit of the ''Prunus'' species.

Drupes, with their sweet, fleshy outer layer, attract the attention of animals as a Food , and the plant population benefits from the resulting dispersal of its seeds. The ''endocarp'' (pit or stone) is often swallowed, passing through the Digestive Tract , and returned to the soil in Feces with the seed inside unharmed; sometimes it is dropped after the fleshy part is eaten.

Many stone fruits contain Sorbitol , which can exacerbate conditions such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Fructose Malabsorption .

The Coconut is also a drupe, but the mesocarp is fibrous or dry (in this case, called a husk), so this type of fruit is classified as a ''simple dry fruit, fibrous drupe''. Unlike other drupes, the coconut seed is unlikely to be dispersed by being swallowed by Fauna , due to its large size.

In an Aggregate Fruit composed of individual small drupes, each individual is termed a drupelet. Bramble fruits (such as the Blackberry or the Raspberry ) are aggregates of drupelets.