PLANTS AND PEOPLE - Botany 328 - LECTURE NOTES - FALL 1997
Hugh D. Wilson - rm. 306, Butler Hall
7 October 97
  Tropical gynoecia

1. HESPERIDIUM: a berry (syncarpous, fleshy, indehiscent) with a leathery rind [exocarp + mesocarp] with embedded oil cavities and locules filled with 'juice sacs' [unicellular 'hairs' derived from the endocarp - each internal 'segment' represents a carpellary unit. Fruit type common to the RUTACEAE and uniform in the genus Citrus.

2. PEPO: a berry from an epigynous species, thus the outer rind a combination of pericarp and perianth tissue - usually leathery or hard - often with just 1 locule (pumpkin) and three carpels. CUCURBITACEAE 3. BERRY - SOLANACEAE - NIGHTSHADE FAMILY - EUROPE - ALKALOIDS - ATROPA BELLADONNA [DEADLY NIGHTSHADE], MANDRAKE - discovery of New World:
  4. Moraceae - Fig - Ficus - 800 species - large genus of the tropics, many huge trees, dominants of the tropical lowlands with great ecological importance - also many ornamental figs - Ficus carica - multiple fruit, unisexual flowers, fleshy receptacle - SYNCONIUM - pollinated by tiny wasps that move from synconium to synconium laying their eggs in ovarys of pistillate flowers. SMYRNA figs have no staminate flowers in inflorescence. Thus, wild figs or cultivated 'pollen donor' figs (CAPRIFIG) must be present. This relationship was not understood with figs were first transported to the New World.


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