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How do you like enjoying your fruits without having to remove the inedible seeds? Spitting out seeds may feel socially awkward around people. Yet you can not enjoy the crunch of a large seed.
Given an opportunity, wouldn’t you prefer a seedless fruit? It would save you the trouble of separating the inedible parts of your fruit from the edible ones.
| Seedless fruit | Fruit without cover |
|---|---|
| Bananas | Apples |
| Pineapples | Plums |
| Watermelons | Pears |
| Tomatoes | |
| Citrus fruits |
Which Fruit Has No Seed?
When you think of growing your favorite fruit, you think of putting their seeds under soil for growth. However, some fruits have no seeds in them. Therefore, seedless fruits have been developed to have no mature seeds in them.
You will find eating seedless fruit more convenient and much easier. If you grow seedless fruits for commercial purposes, you will make more profit. Seedless fruits are considered more commercially valuable as compared to fruits containing seeds.
Seedless fruits can exist naturally or result from manipulation by breeders. Seedless fruits fall under a category known as parthenocarpy. In botany, parthenocarpy is the development of fruit without prior ovule fertilization. The ovule is the part of the flower that develops into a seed after fertilization.
A seedless fruit could also result from fertilized ovules or embryos that abort without producing mature seeds. It is known as stenospermocarpy. After pollination has triggered fruit development, the embryos or ovules fail to develop fully. The resulting fruits are therefore seedless.
The most common varieties of seedless fruits include watermelons, tomatoes, grapes, bananas, and citrus fruits such as lemons, limes, and oranges.
1. Bananas
Bananas are one of the most common seedless fruits. A majority of the banana plants result from a triploid hybrid. It arises through meiotic restitution. This is where a female ovule is diploid following a faulty meiotic division.
The diploid ovule is then pollinated by a haploid pollen nucleus. As a result, the nucleus and seed become a triploid. The odd number of chromosomes makes a meiotic division in the following generation unsuccessful. Such a breed becomes sterile.
Banana fruit has an inferior ovary. Most banana plants show parthenocarpy. Since polyploidy results in larger fruits, breeders have selected them for propagation. The seedless, parthenocarpic vegetative propagation of bananas has resulted in the large nutritious fruits you enjoy.
2. Pineapples
A pineapple plant has an inflorescence and a flowering spike with leaves on top. It seems to grow and develop like a typical plant. Yet, more than 200 of the flowers around the spike of the pineapple develop parthenocarpically. Without fertilization, they develop with no seeds.
The fruits are developed from the female ovary. They fuse and join to form one syncarpic fruit.
Pineapples are propagated from the suckers. They are also propagated from the actual pineapple tops.
3. Watermelons
Like seedless bananas, seedless watermelon fruits are produced by triploid plants. Such plants with three sets of chromosomes make it difficult and unlikely for the successful meiotic division. The failed meiosis produces no seeds in the growing fruit.
4. Tomatoes
To grow seedless tomatoes, breeders spray hormones on the flowers. Then, the seedless fruits are produced by spraying hormones such as cytokinin, auxin, and gibberellin. Spraying is done on the flowers during the early flowering stages.
The sprayed hormones induce the flowers to set fruit without natural pollination. In cold regions, seedless tomatoes are produced by spraying the cytokinin hormone.
5. Citrus fruits
Every major citrus fruit, be it a lemon, lime, or orange, is available in a seedless variety. Most species of citrus fruit do not start-out seedless. Breeders have carefully selected them for the lower number of seeds. Through the efforts of only breeding trees with few seeds, the result features a seedless variety.
The future genetic variation is controlled when the achieved variety is fully grown. The successive genetic variation is limited to grafting the seedless citrus branches onto existing trees. Seedless citrus fruits produced by the grafted branches are genetically identical to the parent plant.
Which Fruit Has No Outer Cover?
For you to enjoy your favorite fruit, say a banana or orange, you have to get rid of the outer covering. The peel is the protective removable covering.
Some fruits are considered to have no outer cover. It means you can enjoy them without having to peel them. It all depends on the thickness and taste of the fruit peel.
Fruits with no outer cover do not have the exocarp, which is the outer layer. Their endocarp, the juicy layer inside, is surrounded by the mesocarp only. The mesocarp is the fleshy middle layer of the fruit. It would otherwise be found between the endocarp and the exocarp.
The mesocarp makes up most of the edible part of fruits without the outer cover. The peel of such fruits is pleasant and edible such as in apples, plums, and pears.
1. Apples
The seed-bearing ovary of an apple is surrounded by a thick and fleshy hypanthium. A hypanthium is a tubular enlargement of the receptacle of a flower. It loosely surrounds the gynoecium (the female part of a flower) or is joined to it.
The hypanthium is not a part of the pericarp, which forms after the fusion of the bases of the petals and sepals. A thickened fleshy hypanthium is fused with the ovary. The apple’s outer skin is the serial arrangement of the epidermis forming the hypanthium that is surrounded by a waxy cuticle.
Beyond their taste, apple peels are packed with beneficial nutrients. For example, a raw apple with skin contains 332% more vitamin K than a peeled apple. It also offers you a significantly higher level of fiber, calcium, and potassium.
2. Plums
Plums are drupe fruits with no outer covering. These fruits have a thin exocarp and a fleshy mesocarp covering a hard and stony endocarp, which protects the seed. The fleshy mesocarp and exocarp make a plum edible without peeling.
3. Pears
Pears are pome fruits. A pome is a fruit consisting of an enlarged fleshy receptacle and a tough central core that contains seeds. The mesocarp is fleshy, but the exocarp surrounding the seeds is paper-thin. In pears, the parts of the tissues that support the receptacle are carried along to become a part of the mature edible fruit.
