A Fruit Basket of Botanical Terms

By Daniel Zimmermann

This e-book treats various kinds of fruit: the achene, caryopsis, samara, cypsela, utricle, anthocarp, nut, labiate fruit, follicle, capsule, legume, pod, lomentum, silique, pome, berry, hesperidium, pepo, and drupe. This is not a dry list of dictionary terms, but vibrant descriptions are presented.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781794712195

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A Fruit Basket of Botanical Terms

A Fruit Basket of Botanical Terms

By Daniel Zimmermann

Dry Fruits with One Seed

Achene

Please excuse my attempt at humor. You would never want to place a typical achene in a fruit basket. Nevertheless, an achene is indeed a type of fruit.

The word achene comes from the ancient Greek. The introductory a is a sort of negative, and chene comes from a Greek word that means to yawn, gape, or open wide. Evidently related is the word chaos, which  in Greek means any wide, empty space, a gulf, chasm.

At any rate, this name tells us that we are dealing with a fruit that does not dehisce; that is to say, unlike the pod of the navy bean, it does not burst apart at maturity to release its seed. Instead of yawning or gaping in this way, it stays shut and keeps its seed