Fruittypen

Fruittypen, or fruit types, is a botanical concept used to describe how fruits form and what they are made from. In botany a fruit is the mature ovary (often with surrounding tissues) and its classification reflects the structure and development of the ovary.

The main categories are simple, aggregate and multiple fruits. Simple fruits develop from a single ovary of one flower. Subtypes include drupes (stone fruits such as peach, plum and cherry, with a hard inner layer surrounding the seed) and pomes (such as apple and pear, where the fleshy part is largely derived from the receptacle). There are also true berries, which are fleshy throughout and contain multiple seeds, as well as capsules and legumes, which are dry fruits that split open to release seeds.

Aggregate fruits form from a single flower with multiple ovaries. Each ovary develops into a small fruitlet, and together they make up the whole fruit. Common examples are raspberries and blackberries. Strawberries are often described as aggregate fruits as well, but they are technically accessory fruits since most of the edible portion comes from tissue other than the ovary.

Multiple fruits arise from the fusion of ovaries from many flowers arranged in an inflorescence. Pineapples are a classic example, formed from many central flowers that fuse together, while figs are sometimes described similarly due to their enclosed inflorescences.

Understanding fruittypen helps in botany, horticulture and agriculture by clarifying how different fruits develop and why their external form can be diverse yet share underlying structural features.