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Concept
Nut (fruit)
Summary
A nut is a fruit consisting of a hard or tough nutshell protecting a kernel which is usually edible. In general usage and in a culinary sense, a wide variety of dry seeds are called nuts, but in a botanical context "nut" implies that the shell does not open to release the seed (indehiscent).
Most seeds come from fruits that naturally free themselves from the shell, but this is not the case in nuts such as hazelnuts, chestnuts, and acorns, which have hard shell walls and originate from a compound ovary. The general and original usage of the term is less restrictive, and many nuts (in the culinary sense), such as almonds, pistachios, and Brazil nuts, are not nuts in a botanical sense. Common usage of the term often refers to any hard-walled, edible kernel as a nut. Nuts are an energy-dense and nutrient-rich food source.
A seed is the mature fertilised ovule of a plant; it consists of three parts, the embryo which will develop into a new plant, stored food for the embryo, and a protective seed coat. Botanically, a nut is a fruit with a woody pericarp developing from a syncarpous gynoecium. Nuts may be contained in an involucre, a cup-shaped structure formed from the flower bracts. The involucre may be scaly, spiny, leafy or tubular, depending on the species of nut. Most nuts come from the pistils with inferior ovaries (see flower) and all are indehiscent (not opening at maturity). True nuts are produced, for example, by some plant families of the order Fagales. These include beech (Fagus), chestnut (Castanea), oak (Quercus), stone-oak (Lithocarpus) and tanoak (Notholithocarpus) in the family Fagaceae, as well as hazel, filbert (Corylus) and hornbeam (Carpinus) in the family Betulaceae.
Also widely known as nuts are dry drupes, which include pecans (Carya illinoensis), almonds (Prunus amygdalus), macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia), candlenut (Aleurites moluccanus), water caltrop (Trapa bicornis) and walnuts (Juglans regia).
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