Year 1 · Reproduction in plants and animals · Section 6.4

Fruits and seeds

A fruit

After fertilisation, fertilised ovules develop into seeds, while the ovary usually develops into a fruit containing them. Petals and stamens often wither and fall off. Remains of the sepals or style may still be visible.

In a bean plant, the fruit is a pod, a type of legume. A mature dry pod can split open to release its seeds. A green bean is an unripe pod, attached by a stalk, sometimes with remains of other flower parts still visible.

Different fruits

Fruits may contain flesh, the soft, sometimes edible part. Flesh may develop mainly from the ovary, as in oranges and bananas, or partly from other flower tissues, as in apples and pears.

• Examples of fruits: Apples, cherries, tomatoes and bean pods.
• Examples of seeds: Beans, peas and apple seeds. A cherry stone contains a seed inside its hard covering.

Some fruits contain one seed; others contain tens or hundreds, as in a melon. In the usual sexual life cycle, each seed develops from an ovule after fertilisation, with the embryo growing from the fertilised egg cell.

Use by humans and other animals

Many fruits are eaten for their flesh. Seeds are also important foods because they contain reserves supporting the young plant during germination.

These food reserves provide nutrients and energy for humans and other animals as well.