Drupe Drupe

Drupe - Definition and Overview

"Autumn Red" peaches
The peach is a typical drupe (stone fruit)

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 flowers with superior ovaries. Some plants that produce drupes are:

The term stone fruit can be a synonym for "drupe" or, commonly, it can mean the fruit of the Prunus species specifically.

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 faeces with the seed inside unharmed; sometimes it is dropped after the fleshy part is eaten.

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.

Black Butte Blackberry, a bramble fruit of aggregated drupelets
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Black Butte Blackberry, a bramble fruit of aggregated drupelets

A drupelet is one unit of an aggregate fruit that has essentially the structure of a drupe. Bramble fruits (for example, blackberry or raspberry) are aggregates of drupelets.

Example Usage of Drupe

mammalpants: @kiljadn Drupe it up!
NaturalHealth21: Health Benefits Of Almonds : Natural Skin Care Products | Toronto ...: The almond is Drupe belonging to species.. http://tinyurl.com/yl56qf2
livenudefood: @joegoldfarb had to Wiki avocado Drupe, then wished I hadn't...the word avocado comes from the Aztec word for testicle.
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