In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. In botanical usage, fruit salad with cool whip 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. Two sperm are transferred from the pollen to a megagametophyte. In some multiseeded fruits, the extent to which a fleshy structure develops is proportional to the number of fertilized ovules. Because several parts of the flower besides the ovary may contribute to the structure of a fruit, it is important to study flower structure to understand how a particular fruit forms.