This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. This list contains the fruit cocktail salad of fruits that are considered edible either raw or in some cuisines. The word “fruit” is used in several different ways.

Botanical berries represent any fruit that has a relatively thin exterior, with mostly flesh and more than one seed inside. Pepos represent any fruit that is covered by a hard, thick rind with soft flesh inside, and seeds filling each locule. Melons are good examples of this. Also known as citruses, Hesperidiums possess thick and leathery rinds. These fruits are generally sour and acidic to some extent and have a wagon wheel-like cross section. Aggregate fruits are a cluster of many fruits produced from a single flower.

Multiple fruits are a cluster of many fruits produced from multiple flowers. Capsules represent a pod fruit with multiple carpels. Legumes represent a pod fruit with one carpel. Follicles represent a single ovary that splits along a single seam. Plants with edible fruit-like structures are not technically fruit, but are used culinarily as such.

In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. In botanical usage, the term fruit also includes many structures that are not commonly called ‘fruits’ in everyday language, such as nuts, bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes, and wheat grains. Many common language terms used for fruit and seeds differ from botanical classifications. For example, in botany, a fruit is a ripened ovary or carpel that contains seeds, e. However, the fruit wall is thin and fused to the seed coat, so almost all the edible grain-fruit is actually a seed. The outer layer, often edible, of most fruits is called the pericarp.

The pericarp may be described in three layers from outer to inner, i. Fruit that bears a prominent pointed terminal projection is said to be beaked. A fruit results from the fertilizing and maturing of one or more flowers. The gynoecium, which contains the stigma-style-ovary system, is centered in the flower-head, and it forms all or part of the fruit. Ovules are fertilized in a process that starts with pollination, which is the movement of pollen from the stamens to the stigma-style-ovary system within the flower-head.