The Fruit

· The fruit is a mature or ripened ovary, developed after fertilisation. 

· It is a distinctive article of the flowering plants.

· Fruits formed without fertilisation of the ovary, is called as parthenocarpic fruit. 

· The fruit consists of a wall or pericarp and seeds.

· The pericarp may be dry or fleshy, when pericarp is thick and fleshy, it is distinguished into the outer epicarp, the middle mesocarp and the inner endocarp.

· In mango and coconut, the fruit known as a drupe, develop from monocarpellary superior ovaries and are one seeded. In mango the pericarp is well differentiated into an outer thin epicarp, a middle fleshy edible mesocarp and an inner stony hard endocarp.

Parts of a fruit : (a) Mango (b) Coconut

· The mesocarp in coconut is fibrous.