🍎 What Is a Fruit?

Have you ever swallowed a seed when you were eating an apple or an orange? A fruit is the part of a flowering plant that contains the seeds. Fruits and seeds can come in many different sizes and shapes. Fruits usually have a skin on the outside, seeds inside, and flesh around the seeds.

🌱 The Jobs of a Fruit

A fruit has two important jobs:

• To protect the seeds inside. 🛡️
• To help spread the seeds. 💨

🌱 Why Seeds Must Be Spread

Have you ever found seeds stuck in your socks? Plants need to spread their seeds away from themselves. This process is called seed dispersal. It happens when a fruit is ripe and the seeds are ready to grow into new plants.

Seeds grow into young plants called seedlings. Seedlings need room, light, and water to grow. They cannot become healthy plants if they are all crowded together sharing the same space. Plants are adapted to spread their seeds in different ways to make sure each seed has a chance to grow well.

The picture below shows how the fruits of some plants help to disperse their seeds in nature.

🐒 Some Seeds Are Dispersed by Animals

Some fruits use animals to spread their seeds. Fruits that spread in this way attract animals to eat them. These fruits are usually colourful, soft, and tasty — often sweet or juicy. They usually have small seeds inside.

🦜 How Animals Help Spread Seeds

Animals such as birds, monkeys, mice, and even elephants eat these fruits. The seeds pass through the animal’s body and are later dispersed in the droppings — often far away from the place where the fruit was eaten.

🧤 Seeds That Stick to Animals

Some fruits and seeds have tiny spines or hooks that stick to the fur of animals or the clothes of people. These seeds can be carried a long way from the parent plant before falling off or being scratched away.

🌬️ Some Seeds Are Dispersed by Wind

Seeds that are dispersed by wind are very light. Have you ever blown away the seeds of a dandelion? These tiny seeds travel easily through the air when the wind blows.

🌼 How Wind Helps Seeds Travel

Dandelions have a parachute of hairs that helps them float gently in the air. Other seeds have thin, papery ‘wings’ that help them blow away easily. The poppy fruit forms a little ‘pepper pot’ with holes in it, and when the wind shakes it, the seeds are sprinkled out and carried away.

🌊 Some Fruits Float

A few seeds are dispersed by water. The fruit must be able to float to carry the seeds away. These fruits have a spongy covering that helps them float. For example, the coconut is dispersed by water.

Mangroves are trees that grow in salty water in warm, wet regions. Their seeds, called ‘sea pencils’, float upright in the sea until they are washed onto land.

💥 Some Fruits Split Open or Explode

Some fruits disperse their seeds by themselves. The fruit dries out and splits open to let the seeds fall out. Some fruits explode and shoot out their seeds. For example, bean pods dry out and explode in hot weather.

🍎 Some Fruits Drop and Roll

Some fruits are heavy and round. When they are ripe, they drop from the tree and roll along the ground. If the fruits have a tough outer shell, they can roll quite far from the parent plant. Large fruits that fall from high branches roll even further. Apple seeds are often dispersed in this way.

Fruits with softer skins may break open when they hit the ground, scattering their seeds. Animals that eat fallen fruits can also help spread the seeds farther away from the parent plant.