If the definition of fruit is : one having a sweet pulp associated with the seed. Is a seedless peach a fruit?

Question

If the definition of fruit is : one having a sweet pulp associated with the seed. Is a seedless peach a fruit?

Answer 1

They do not have to be viable seeds. A fruit is the flesh and seed resulting from a fertilized and ripened flower ovary. This means a fruit develops from the ovary in the base of the flower, and contains or bears the seeds of the plant whether or not they are viable, able to germinate and grow..

Fruit flesh is the product of the flowers reproductive center, the ovary. It thickens around the seed after pollination. However if no mature seed develops from the fertilized egg it is considered seedless. Many times immature seeds are present but easily ignored like the black specks in bananas or the soft, shriveled, white seed coats in watermelon. These are seeds but they could not developer further and they are in a ripened ovary so, yes, they are still fruit.

Seedless crosses occur naturally but is usually a dead end for lack of progeny. The exception is when humans are able to produce subsequent generations by vegetative propagation techniques. This is a nice case of symbiosis. We get to eat seedless fruit while the plant gets to continue and even spread. To grow more plants you have to use the same parents that produced the first seedless plant or vegetatively clone the seedless cultivar.

Parthenocarpy or seedless fruiting is a natural phenomena. Some plants do this on a regular basis to lure seed eaters away from their fertile seeds by presenting them with decoy fruit to eat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenocar...

Answer 2

Technically no it is not a fruit but in the real world yes it is a fruit that has been changed by people to not have seeds.  Other examples of this are bananas and watermelon.

Answer 3

yes, because like seedless watermelon, they plant the seeds of the ones that have the fewest seeds until they're seedless.