Multiple fruit


Multiple fruits, also called collective fruits, are fruiting bodies formed from a cluster of fruiting flowers, the inflorescence. Each flower in the inflorescence produces a fruit, but these mature into a single mass in which each flower has produced a true fruit. After flowering the mass is called an infructescence. Examples are the fig, pineapple, mulberry, osage-orange, and breadfruit.
In languages other than English, the meanings of multiple and aggregate fruit are reversed, so that multiple fruits merge several pistils within a single flower.
, flowers are produced regularly along the stem and it is possible to see examples of flowering, fruit development and fruit ripening together on a single branch
As shown in the photograph of the noni on the right, stages of flowering and fruit development in the noni or Indian mulberry can be observed on a single branch. First an inflorescence of white flowers called a head is produced. After fertilization, each flower develops into a drupe, and as the drupes expand, they become connate into a multiple fleshy fruit called a syncarp. There are also many dry multiple fruits.
Other examples of multiple fruits: