[HN Gopher] Fruits (2020)
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       Fruits (2020)
        
       Author : yeknoda
       Score  : 121 points
       Date   : 2024-10-26 16:22 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (graphallthethings.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (graphallthethings.com)
        
       | thadk wrote:
       | These trees often gives good generic bearings for allergies and
       | other aspects of life.
       | 
       | See also: the garden's evolutionary history:
       | https://observablehq.com/@thadk/garden
       | 
       | and the make-your-own evolutionary history using pyodide and the
       | python ETE3 library: https://observablehq.com/@thadk/life
        
       | whyenot wrote:
       | Cool! It's a really nice visual representation. I'm not totally
       | convinced by the scaling of the branch lengths, but it doesn't
       | really matter for this. By the way, there are some fruit that
       | branch off before the divergence between monocots and eudicots
       | and are in a group generally called Magnoliids. Years ago they
       | were classified as dicots, but they made that group polyphyletic.
       | Some examples are avocado, cherimoya, and soursop.
       | 
       |  _Are there fruits that diverged through domestication, other
       | than obvious cases like apple varieties?_
       | 
       | Citrus, which is well represented in your tree is a good example.
       | 
       |  _And are those people who call watermelons "berries" actually
       | basing it on science? (No.)_
       | 
       | Botanically, melons, cucumbers, and the fruit of many (not all!)
       | species in the Cucurbitaceae are classified as a pepo, a type of
       | berry.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_botanical_terms#pe...
        
         | GrumpyNl wrote:
         | I was learned that fruit has it seeds inside, vegetables on the
         | outside, meaning that strawberry is actually a vegetable.
        
           | Ductapemaster wrote:
           | It's not quite that simple:
           | https://carnegiemuseums.org/magazine-
           | archive/1997/mayjun/dep...
           | 
           | However, one misnomer remains true -- a Strawberry isn't
           | actually a 'berry'.
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | Is an useless definition. Pickles, Pepper and Peas are
           | vegetables
        
             | thaumasiotes wrote:
             | Vegetable just means "plant".
        
           | whyenot wrote:
           | Vegetables don't have seeds on the outside, and strawberries
           | don't have that anyways. Each "seed" on the outside of a
           | strawberry is actually a fruit that contains a single seed.
           | If you look carefully with a magnifying glass or something
           | similar, you can often still see the female parts of the
           | flower (pistil) sticking up from each "seed." The fleshy and
           | sweet part of a strawberry originates as part of the flower
           | called the receptacle. It sits below the ovaries of the
           | flower. In strawberries, the receptacle is cone shaped,
           | probably an adaptation to increase access by pollinators.
           | After pollination, this part of the flower swells up and
           | becomes the strawberry that you are familiar with :) The
           | little ring of green leaves at the top of of a strawberry are
           | the sepals of the flower it originated from.
        
             | thaumasiotes wrote:
             | > Each "seed" on the outside of a strawberry is actually a
             | fruit that contains a single seed.
             | 
             | This depends on the perspective you want to take. From an
             | anatomical perspective, the fruit part of the strawberry is
             | different from the fruit part of a grape.
             | 
             | From an economic perspective, they are the same; the sweet
             | and fleshy material is the payment from the plant to the
             | animal for doing the plant a service. The seed is something
             | that the animal doesn't want but consumes anyway as part of
             | the deal.
        
       | graemep wrote:
       | Grapefruit is a hybrid of pomelo and and orange so the say is is
       | shown as a sibling of pomelo does not seem right.
        
         | jamessb wrote:
         | Yes, this gives a misleading view of the relationship between
         | citrus fruits.
         | 
         | This diagram (on the Wikipedia article for Citrus) gives more
         | information:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hybrid_origins_of_Citrus....
        
         | mjamesaustin wrote:
         | In general this view doesn't do a good job of explaining citrus
         | fruits. There are a huge variety of hybrids mostly deriving
         | from combinations of the mandarin, pomelo, citron, and
         | micrantha (lime).
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | Is not so simple, there are TWO grapefruits. One is an hybrid,
         | the other is one of the four fantastic ancient Citrus species,
         | that are the grand-grand-grand-parents of (almost) every known
         | fruit from that family. "Everything", from Uglyfruits to Blood
         | Oranges to Key limes is an hybrid except a very few wild
         | species
        
           | pvaldes wrote:
           | Um, I see what are you saying, this part of the diagram with
           | orange being older than pomelo is clearly wrong. Good point.
           | Is good to remind that genetic analysis must be interpreted
           | wisely together with other facts, or can easily mislead.
        
       | rainingmonkey wrote:
       | > You'd think all kiwis would be related, sharing brown fuzz and
       | being associated with New Zealand, but actually the kiwi fruit
       | and kiwi bird diverged 1.4 billion years ago.
       | 
       | This got a real chuckle from me! I've hear the key to comedy is
       | surprise, and I didn't expect that in the middle of a bunch of
       | interesting but serious facts.
        
       | Jun8 wrote:
       | The rose branch brought to mind again this poem by Robert Frost
       | which is one of my favorites:                 The rose is a rose,
       | And was always a rose.       But the theory now goes       That
       | the apple's a rose,       And the pear is, and so's       The
       | plum, I suppose.       The dear only knows       What will next
       | prove a rose.       You, of course, are a rose -       But were
       | always a rose.
       | 
       | In one of her letters Jane Austen mentions that they had a game
       | of coming up with powers that rhyme with rose, you may see
       | Jane's, her sister's and others' efforts (rather mundane) efforts
       | here: https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablt18.html#letter97
        
       | patrickhogan1 wrote:
       | Please explain - curious
       | 
       | "You'd think all kiwis would be related, sharing brown fuzz and
       | being associated with New Zealand, but actually the kiwi fruit
       | and kiwi bird diverged 1.4 billion years ago."
        
         | DrSAR wrote:
         | a decent stab at humour. I chuckled.
        
           | patrickhogan1 wrote:
           | Haha, same here! I ended up diving into a kiwi fruit rabbit
           | hole. Apparently, the kiwi fruit was originally called the
           | Chinese gooseberry but was rebranded by New Zealand fruit
           | breeders as part of a marketing strategy. It's funny looking
           | at this picture:
           | 
           | https://i.etsystatic.com/9032484/r/il/79babb/1458733776/il_f.
           | ..
        
             | klipt wrote:
             | Now that's cultural appropriation! Thousands of years of
             | domestication and breeding by Chinese fruit growers, and
             | then New Zealand takes all the credit!
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | > Thousands of years of domestication and breeding by
               | Chinese fruit growers, and then New Zealand takes all the
               | credit!
               | 
               | The kiwi does seem to have been domesticated by the
               | Chinese, but you wouldn't want to infer that from the
               | name "Chinese gooseberry". They could be like the
               | Norwegian rat (also from China) or the "Persian" peach,
               | _prunus persica_ (which is from China too).
               | 
               | Maybe you should just assume that everything comes from
               | China.
        
               | tuatoru wrote:
               | Ya go' us bang to righ's, guv. Ih's a fair cop.
        
       | Scarblac wrote:
       | Where do grapes go? Surprised one of the fruits I eat most
       | commonly isn't in the chart.
        
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