Seed dissemination

Variations in fruit structures largely depend on the mode of dispersal of the seeds they contain. This dispersal can be achieved by animals, wind, water, or explosive dehiscence.

Some fruits have coats covered with spikes or hooked burrs, either to prevent themselves from being eaten by animals or to stick to the hairs, feathers or legs of animals, using them as dispersal agents. Examples include cocklebur and unicorn plant.

The sweet flesh of many fruits is "deliberately" appealing to animals, so that the seeds held within are eaten and "unwittingly" carried away and deposited at a distance from the parent. Likewise, the nutritious, oily kernels of nuts are appealing to rodents (such as squirrels) who hoard them in the soil in order to avoid starving during the winter, thus giving those seeds that remain uneaten the chance to germinate and grow into a new plant away from their parent.

Other fruits are elongated and flattened out naturally and so become thin, like wings or helicopter blades, e.g. maple, tuliptree and elm. This is an evolutionary mechanism to increase dispersal distance away from the parent via wind. Other wind-dispersed fruit have tiny parachutes, e.g. dandelion and salsify.

Coconut fruits can float thousands of miles in the ocean to spread seeds. Some other fruits that can disperse via water are nipa palm and screw pine.

Some fruits fling seeds substantial distances (up to 100 m in sandbox tree) via explosive dehiscence or other mechanisms, e.g. impatiens and squirting cucumber.

Banana:

Banana is the common name for a fruit and also the herbaceous plants of the genus Musa which produce the commonly eaten fruit - The banana plant is a pseudostem that grows to 6 to 7.6 metres (20-25 feet) tall, growing from a corm - Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple and red - Bananas and plantains constitute a major staple food crop for millions of people in developing countries - The domestication of bananas took place in southeastern Asia. Many species of wild bananas still occur in New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Apple:

The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family Rosaceae - The wild ancestor of Malus domestica is Malus sieversii - There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples - Like most perennial fruits, apples ordinarily propagate asexually by grafting - Apples are self-incompatible; they must cross-pollinate to develop fruit.

Vegetable:

Many root and non-root vegetables that grow underground can be stored through winter in a root cellar or other similarly cool, dark and dry place to prevent mold, greening and sprouting - Kai-lan, Bok choy, Komatsuna - Amaranth, Bitterleaf, Catsear - Malabar gourd, Marrow, Parwal - Guar, Horse gram, Indian pea