Plum is a fruit plant from the extensive Rosaceae family. Many fruit and berry crops well known to children and adults belong to the same systematic group: apple, cherry, sweet cherry, apricot, peach, strawberry, raspberry. Let's look at the question that most often sounds like this: "Is a plum a berry or a fruit?". There is nothing surprising in the fact that many people get confused in terms.
Plum - berry or fruit?
Among fruit trees, plums take pride of place, because since ancient times people have grown it for the sake of harvest. Sweet dishes, sauces and spirits are prepared from the fruits of plums, blackthorns, cherry plums. Plum is a tree or shrub with a height of 1 to 6 m. All groups of varieties and wild species are high-yielding plants.
Fruit - single-stoned drupe - is formed in place of the flower after fertilization. Before maturation, the pericarp remains firm for some time, colored green. As nutrients accumulate, the fruit becomes more juicy, and inside it, in a special nest, ahard bone with seed.
What are the fruits?
From the Latin language to Russian, the term “fruit”, which did not take root in scientific use, came a long time ago. But in medicine, dietetics, cooking and everyday life, this word is very popular, although not everyone can interpret it correctly. What is the difference between a fruit and a berry? Plum belongs to which of these two groups?
It is generally accepted that a fruit is the same as a fruit, because that is how the word fructus is translated from Latin. Other edible parts of plants, and the plants themselves, may also belong to such economic groups as vegetables, cereals, nuts. Among the fruits, two groups of juicy fruits are distinguished: drupes and berries. They differ in the number of seeds and a number of other characteristics.
Let's get it straight: a plum is actually a fruit or a berry. It is necessary to distinguish between scientific terms and economic definitions. Fruit types of plants in botany differ in the consistency of the pericarp and the number of seeds. There are 4 main groups - dry and juicy, one-seeded and multi-seeded.
What type of fruit does a plum have?
Drupes - plums, cherries, apricots - are juicy, contain one seed. Berries are also juicy, but multi-seeded fruits. They arise from one or more carpels. They distinguish between a completely fleshy berry with a thin skin, like a grape, and a leathery berry, in which the pericarp is thick, like an orange. So after all, is a plum a berry or a fruit? The second concept is more extensive and includes the first, that is,berries are a type of fruit (fruit).
Representatives of botanical science, without hesitation, will determine: a plum is a berry or a fruit. Seeing the juicy fruits of plums and grapes, they will say that they have a drupe and a berry in front of them. A nutritionist, a salesperson, an ordinary person will explain that both are fruits. Everyone will be right in their reasoning and conclusions. Thus, a plum is not a berry. Here it should be recalled that berries can also be classified as fruits, that in economic activity, everyday life is not considered a mistake. After all, all this is fruit (lat. fructus).
Plum refers to trees or shrubs?
By appearance, plants can be attributed to different life forms. The following groups are considered the main ones: trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, lianas. Life forms are a kind of adaptation to the conditions of existence.
After we have easily figured out the above problem - is a plum a berry or a fruit - it will be more difficult to answer the question about life form. In appearance, plants belonging to the genus Plum are low trees and shrubs. The most common type is the home garden plum. In the wild, the tree is found in the Caucasus.
Diversity of species of the subgenus Prunus
Until now, in the forests, along the beams and ravines, wild plums are found, but most of the species belonging to this subgenus have long been cultivated. They give rich yields of medium and large fruits of different colors withcharacteristic flat bone inside. Their length usually exceeds the thickness by 1.5 times, the diameter is from 1–3 cm. New varieties have been developed that give large fruits up to 8 cm in size, sweet or sour in taste. Species common in Eurasia:
- Home garden - a common species for central Russia.
- Prickly, blackthorn, blackthorn - a small, very prickly shrub with blue fruits.
- Spread, cherry plum - a tree reaching 8 m high. Found wild in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
- Ussuri - wildly lives in Primorye and cultivated for fruits in Eastern Siberia.
- Chinese - grown in China, Japan, Korea. The fruits are sweet and sour, widely used in cooking and winemaking.- Pissardi is an ornamental tree with beautiful pink petals and dark red foliage. Used in landscape design.
At the sight of a thorn bush, there is bewilderment: is it really a plum? Berry or fruit - its dark blue small fruit? Cherry plum also surprises with its fruiting. Although this tree looks like a plum, the color of its rich harvest is unusual - red and yellow (purple and blue fruits are less common).
Useful qualities of plums
People use the fruits of wild and cultivated plants for food, for processing into juices, preserves, jams, liqueurs, as a filling for baking, as a medicinal raw material. Homemade plum has long been grown for the sake of juicy drupes with a bluish bloom. House plum fruits contain:
- carbohydrates (fructose, glucose);
- vitamins C, A, P, group B;
- organic acids;
- tannins;
- micronutrients;
- pectins.
Preparations from the pulp of fruits and seeds of plums are used in folk and official medicine. Prunes are used in dietary nutrition, confectionery production. Plum blossoms early and profusely, even before the full bloom of the leaves. Trees and shrubs look very elegant and are valued in landscape design.
Traditionally, in the 20th century, two groups of varieties were distinguished in the composition of the species - Hungarians and renklods. The former are represented by trees and shrubs with blue-violet rounded or elongated fruits. Greenclods often have spherical fruits of a greenish color. Now the main direction is the breeding of undersized subspecies, interspecific crossing and obtaining hybrids, for example, plums and apricots.
