Klaus fruit

Flower diagram of Lamium , the false partitions are indicated by arrows.

Unripe claus fruit from Cynoglossum creticum (Boraginaceae).

Klausen des Wald-Ziest

A Klaus fruit is a special form of decay fruit , a break fruit that occurs mainly in the mint family (Lamiaceae) and predatory leaf family (Boraginaceae). It disintegrates to maturity by splitting real and breaking false partitions into mostly lonely partial fruits, the Klausen (nuts). The number of clauses is therefore always a multiple of the number of carpel.

The ovary from which the Klausen fruit develops is on top and is mostly surrounded by the durable calyx and consists of two coenocarp-septate carpels . There are two central angular or basal ovules per carpel . The carpels are separated into usually two halves by a false septum , located in the median plane of the flower and extending from the dorsal center of the carpel, each with an ovule. This creates a total of four subjects. When the seeds are ripe, this fruit usually breaks up into four solitary parts, the Klausen. A cell corresponds morphologically to half a carpel. But there can be fewer than four clauses, e.g. B. be two contiguous, as in the wax flowers , or more, as in Gomphia .

The term Klausenfrucht or Klausen is rarely used internationally, there is spoken of schizocarp, eremocarp, mericarp or mericarpids or nutlets.

literature

• Peter Leins: blossom and fruit. Morphology, history of development, phylogeny, function, ecology. E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-510-65194-4 , p. 259.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Stützel: Botanical determination exercises. 3rd edition, Ulmer, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8252-8549-4 , p. 41.
2. ^ Eckehart J. Jäger: Rothmaler - excursion flora from Germany. 21st edition, Springer, 2017, ISBN 978-3-662-49707-4 , p. 885.
3. ↑ M. Römer : Handbook of general botany. 2nd department, Fleischmann, Munich 1836, p. 410 f.