An apple is a pome fruit. The parts of the fruit are labelled

In botany, a pome (after the Latin name for fruit: pomum) is a specialty type of fruit produced by flowering plants in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae.

A pome is an accessory fruit composed of one or more carpels surrounded by accessory tissue. The accessory tissue is interpreted by some specialists as an extension of the receptacle and is then referred to as "fruit cortex"^[1], and by others as a fused hypanthium^[1] or "torus"^[2]; it is the most edible part of this fruit.

Although the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp of some other fruit types look very much like the skin, flesh, and core respectively of a pome, they are parts of the carpel (see diagram). The exocarp and mesocarp of a pome may be fleshy and difficult to distinguish from one another and from the hypanthial tissue. The endocarp forms a leathery or stony case around the seed, and corresponds to what is commonly called the core. The shriveled remains of the sepals, style and stamens can sometimes be seen at the end of a pome opposite the stem, and the ovary is therefore often described as inferior in these flowers.

[edit] Examples

The best-known example of a pome is the apple. Other examples of plants that produce fruit classified as a pome are cotoneaster, hawthorn, loquat, medlar, pear, pyracantha, toyon, quince^[2], rowan, and whitebeam.

Some pomes may have a mealy texture (e.g. some apples); others (e.g. Amelanchier) are berry-like with juicy flesh and a core that is not very noticeable.

[edit] See also

• Nut (fruit)

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Esau, K. 1977. Anatomy of seed plants. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
2. ^ ^{a b} Jonathan Pereira, Fred B. Kilmer, Joseph Carson, Alfred Swaine Taylor, George Owen Rees (1857) The Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Published by Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman's, v.2:pt.2

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