Do grasses produce fruits?

Question

and where are their reproductive organs?

Answer 1

Grasses produce seeds. They do have flowers like other plants, they just aren't showy and are often over looked.  (And they do not reproduce by spores. Ferns, molds, and a few other things do, but grass reproduces by seeds and underground runners.)

If you google pampas grass you will see the showy plumes at the top of the grass mound. That is the flower of the pampas grass. The flowers contain the sexual/reproductive organs. IIRC, grasses are wind pollinated.

Since grass produces seeds, it would reason that they do produce fruits. Fruits are nothing more than ripened ovaries which aid in dispersal of seeds (or a single seed).  Grasses can have a type of fruit called an anthecium, which generally contain one seed.

Answer 2

Grasses do not produce fruits, but they do produce seeds and flower like structure.

Answer 3

To simplify Maverick's correct answer, the fruit of a grass is a caryopsis, a single-seeded fruit in which the ovary wall has fused with the seed coat.

Grasses have flowers.

Answer 4

i dont think so!

Answer 5

I dont think so...most grasses are likely to come through spores - I think...

Answer 6

Question 1 )Do grasses produce fruits?

Answer 1 ) Yes , details as under =

Grasses are flowering plants and monocotyledons  ....... ( 1 )

All flowering plants ( Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons ) produce flowers and fruits(with seeds ) as well !!! .........( 2 )

Therefore, grasses produce flowers and fruits with seeds ...(3 )

Since these fruits are tiny , inconspicuous and do not confirm to common man's idea of fruit it is difficult to believe .

The terminology for the grass fruit is ' Caryopsis'.

In botany, a caryopsis is a type of simple dry fruit — one that is monocarpelate (formed from a single carpel) and indehiscent (not opening at maturity) and resembles an achene, except that in a caryopsis the pericarp is fused with the thin seed coat.

The caryopsis is popularly called a grain and is the fruit typical of the family Poaceae (or Gramineae), such as wheat, rice, and corn. ( It includes all the grasses as well )

The term grain is also used in a more general sense as synonymous with cereal .

Considering that the fruit wall and the seed are intimately fused into a single unit, and the caryopsis or grain is a dry fruit, little concern is given to technically separating the terms "fruit" and "seed" in these plant structures.

In many grains, the "hulls" to be separated before processing are actually flower bracts.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryopsis"

Click the links below for images and info==

What you see on the link below are maize cobs full of maize grains ( which are in fact maize fruits . Maize is a grass )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cornc...

http://www.gramene.org/species/zea/image...

http://www.worldofstock.com/slides/PFO39...

On the link below it is Rice ( Another grass !!!)

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/bo...

Grass male and female flower ( labeled ) green part is the ovary that turns in to fruit enclosing a single seed =

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/web...

More info=

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/web...

Finally on the link below is details of WHEAT  grain = In that Pericarp means fruit wall and Testa means Seed coat . That means fruit and seed are inseparably combined in one !!!!!!=

http://www.grainchain.com/11-to-14/growi...

Question 2 ) And where are their reproductive organs?

Answer 2 ) The main reproductive organs are FLOWERS like any flowering plant .

These are located at the top of the main stem so that they are exposed to wind that carries the pollen rains . All grasses are Wind pollinated plants . That is why the flowers are small and un attractive . Creating problems for a layman !!!

Most of the flowers are bisexual BUT  in Maize they are unisexual !

In Maize the male flowers are located at the top as mentioned earlier , to dessiminate the pollen grains .

But the female flowers ( That turn into corn on the cob ) are located near the base to catch the pollen floating down .

On the links below are the images of flowers =

Maize = Male And Female in the same image =

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/162...

detail info =

http://www.backyardnature.net/fl_corn.ht...

image of  flowers of grass =

http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/pestcro...

http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/pestcro...

From = A Botanist