Drupe#Terminology

{{short description|Fleshy fruit with hard inner layer (endocarp or stone) surrounding the seed}}

File:Drupe fruit diagram.svg), showing both fruit and seed]]

File:Nectarine Fruit Development.jpg) type of peach (Prunus persica) over a {{frac|7|1|2}}-month period, from bud formation in early winter to fruit ripening in midsummer]]

In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the pip (UK), pit (US), stone, or pyrena) of hardened endocarp with a seed (kernel) inside. Drupes do not split open to release the seed, i.e., they are indehiscent.{{cite book |title=Introductory Plant Biology |url=https://archive.org/details/introductoryplan00ster |url-access=registration |edition=Seventh |first=Kingsley R. |last=Stern |location=Dubuque |publisher=Wm. C. Brown |year=1997 |isbn=0-07-114448-X }} These fruits usually develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries (polypyrenous drupes are exceptions).

The definitive characteristic of a drupe is that the hard, woody (lignified) stone is derived from the ovary wall of the flower. In an aggregate fruit, which is composed of small, individual drupes (such as a raspberry), each individual is termed a drupelet, and may together form an aggregate fruit.{{Cite book |title=Ultimate Family Visual Dictionary |publisher=DK Pub. |year=2012|isbn=978-0-1434-1954-9|location=New Delhi |pages=148–149|chapter=Plants|language=en}} Such fruits are often termed berries, although botanists use a different definition of berry. Other fleshy fruits may have a stony enclosure that comes from the seed coat surrounding the seed, but such fruits are not drupes.

Flowering plants that produce drupes include coffee, jujube, mango, olive, most palms (including açaí, date, sabal and oil palms), pistachio, white sapote, cashew, and all members of the genus Prunus, including the almond, apricot, cherry, damson, peach, nectarine, and plum.

The term drupaceous is applied to a fruit having the structure and texture of a drupe, but which does not precisely fit the definition of a drupe.{{cite web |title=drupaceous adjective |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drupaceous |publisher=Merriam-Webster |access-date=20 April 2025}}

Description

The boundary between a drupe and a berry is not always clear. Thus, some sources describe the fruit of species from the genus Persea, which includes the avocado, as a drupe,{{cite book |first1=B. Eugene |last1=Wofford |contribution=Persea |contribution-url=http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=124627 |access-date=2017-03-29 |editor-last=Flora of North America Editorial Committee|title=Flora of North America (online) |publisher=eFloras.org }} others describe avocado fruit as a berry. One definition of berry requires the endocarp to be less than {{Convert|2|mm|abbr=on|frac=32}} thick, other fruits with a stony endocarp being drupes.{{Cite book |last=Beentje |first=Henk |year=2010 |title=The Kew Plant Glossary |location=Richmond, Surrey |publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |isbn=978-1-84246-422-9 }} In marginal cases, terms such as drupaceous or drupe-like may be used.

{{anchor|freestone}}A freestone is a drupe with a stone that can easily be removed from the flesh.{{cite web |title=Free stone |url=https://treeterms.co.uk/free-stone/ |website=A companion to British arboriculture |access-date=28 May 2025}} {{anchor|clingstone}}A clingstone is a drupe having a stone which cannot be easily removed from the flesh.{{cite web |title=Cling stone |url=https://treeterms.co.uk/cling-stone/ |website=A companion to British arboriculture |access-date=28 May 2025}}

A tryma is a nut-like drupe. Hickory nuts (Carya) and walnuts (Juglans) in the Juglandaceae family grow within an outer husk; these fruits are technically drupes or drupaceous nuts, not true botanical nuts.{{Cite web |title=Identification of Major Fruit Types |first=W. P. |last=Armstrong |date=2008 |url=http://www.waynesword.net/fruitid1.htm |access-date=2023-01-16}}{{Cite web |title=Fruits Called Nuts |date=2009 |first=W. P. |last=Armstrong |url=http://www.waynesword.net/ecoph8.htm |access-date=2023-01-16}}

Many drupes, with their sweet, fleshy outer layer, attract the attention of animals as food, and the plant benefits from the resulting dispersal of its seeds.{{cite web |last=Meyer |first=Deborah J. Lionakis |title=Seed Development and Structure in Floral Crops |url=https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/20053005271 |publisher=CABI |access-date=28 May 2025 |page=132 |quote=In a drupe, the pericarp is divided into three layers: a leathery exocarp, a fleshy mesocarp and a hard endocarp. The endocarp usually surrounds the seed after the fleshy part of the fruit disintegrates (e.g. O. europaea and Prunus L.).}}

Examples

Typical drupes include apricots, olives, loquat, peaches, plums, cherries, mangoes, pecans, and amlas (Indian gooseberries). Other examples include sloe (Prunus spinosa) and ivy (Hedera helix).Clapham, A.R., Tutin, T.G. and Warburg, E.F. 1968. Excursion Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press{{ISBN|0-521-04656-4}}

The coconut is a drupe, its mesocarp a dry or fibrous husk, its endocarp a hard shell.{{cite web |date=December 2014 |title=Coconut botany |url=http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/horticulture/horti_pcrops_coconut_botany.html |access-date=14 December 2017 |website=Agritech Portal |publisher=Tamil Nadu Agricultural University}}

Bramble fruits such as the blackberry and the raspberry are aggregates of drupelets. The fruit of blackberries and raspberries comes from a single flower whose pistil is made up of a number of free carpels.{{Cite web |title=Bramble or blackberry: Woodlands.co.uk |url=http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-flowers/pinkpurple-flowers/bramble-or-blackberry/ |access-date=2016-02-15 |website=www.woodlands.co.uk |archive-date=2016-09-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914051950/http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/woodland-flowers/pinkpurple-flowers/bramble-or-blackberry/ |url-status=live }} However, mulberries, which closely resemble blackberries, are not aggregates but multiple fruits.{{cite web |title=Mulberry tree identification |url=https://www.treeguideuk.co.uk/mulberries/ |website=Tree Guide |access-date=28 May 2025}}

Some drupes occur in clusters, as in palms. Examples include dates, Jubaea chilensisC. Michael Hogan. 2008. [http://globaltwitcher.auderis.se/artspec_information.asp?thingid=82831 Chilean Wine Palm: Jubaea chilensis, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017013207/http://globaltwitcher.auderis.se/artspec_information.asp?thingid=82831 |date=October 17, 2012 }} in central Chile and Washingtonia filifera in the Sonoran Desert of North America.{{cite web |title=Washingtonia filifera |url=https://www.telcs.com/post/washingtonia-filifera |website=TELCS |access-date=28 May 2025}}

Many gymnosperms like cycads, ginkgos and some cypresses have drupe-like "fruits".{{cite journal |first1=D.L. |last1=Contreras |first2=I.A.P. |last2=Duijnstee |first3=S. |last3=Ranks |first4=C.R. |last4=Marshall |first5=C.V. |last5=Looy |date=February 2017 |title=Evolution of dispersal strategies in conifers: Functional divergence and convergence in the morphology of diaspores |journal=Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics |volume=24 |pages=93–117 |doi=10.1016/j.ppees.2016.11.002|doi-access=free |bibcode=2017PPEES..24...93C }}

Gallery

File:NIEdot325.jpg|Assorted drupes

File:Autumn Red peaches.jpg|The peach is a typical drupe (stone fruit)

File:Prunus - Elena.JPG|'Elena', a freestone prune plum

File:Nectarine_stone.jpg|The pit of a nectarine

File:Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) fruits.jpg|Unripe drupes of black pepper

File:Black Butte blackberry.jpg|'Black Butte' blackberry, a bramble fruit of aggregated drupelets

File:arecanut.jpg|A ripe areca nut

File:Ginkgo biloba 007.jpg|Ginkgo "fruits", often noted as drupe-like

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20201223072054/https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/fruitid1.htm Identification of Major Fruit Types] (archived)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200315011337/https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/ecoph8.htm Fruits Called Nuts] (archived)
{{Cite NIE|wstitle=Drupe |year=1905 |short=x}}

Category:Edible nuts and seeds

Category:Fruit morphology