Follicle fruit
A follicle fruit (also known as a folliculus ) is an opening fruit or scattering fruit. It usually consists of a dry, mostly leathery pericarp , which usually contains several seeds .
The follicle fruit arises from a single carpel in an upper ovary . This carpel is fused with a mostly clearly recognizable belly seam on which the seeds sit. Along this line of adhesion on the underside or belly side, the fruit opens at a single seam when ripe. In this it differs from the legume , which also consists of only one carpel, but opens both at the belly and at the back seam. The individual valves of the pericarp of the follicle are also known as valves .
The flower often contains several carpels, so that several follicles arise in one whorl . If these individual fruits are inseparably fused together so that they form a unit, one speaks of a pelvic fruit . A special form of the pelvis fruit is the apple fruit , in which the individual bellows are grown around the tissue of the flower base. In this case, the bellows can barely open and the seeds are only released after removing the pulp.
Developmentally, the follicle is the legume next. Follicles are the most original form of the flowering plants . Therefore, there are also original taxa that form follicles, such as the genus of Magnolia ( Magnolia ), the families of Ranunculaceae (Ranunculaceae), peony plants (Paeoniaceae) schisandraceae (Schisandraceae) crossosomataceae , Limnocharitaceae , petrosaviaceae , and the subfamily of spiraeoideae at the rose plants.
Winged follicles such as those of the genus Gonolobus are also possible . Non-opening follicles like those of the genus Hunteria are also possible. Here, as in Picralima, they are formed as partial fruits (mericarp) of a split fruit .
literature
- Peter Sitte, Hubert Ziegler, Friedrich Ehrendorfer, Andreas Bresinsky: Strasburger, textbook of botany. Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart, Jena, New York 1991, ISBN 3-437-20447-5 , p. 756.
- Eckehart J. Jäger: Rothmaler excursion flora from Germany. Vascular plants: baseline. Spektrum, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8274-1606-3 , p. 875.
