🍎 The Star Inside the Apple ⭐️ Types of fruits - Pome

There’s a fruit you probably know very well. You may have eaten it today—crisp, juicy, red or green. It fits in your hand, sits in your lunchbox, and sometimes rolls under the table when dropped. Yes, it’s the apple. 🍎✨

We’ve discovered that not all fruits are the same. Some are fleshy, like apples, grapes, and peaches. Others are dry, like acorns, nuts, and bean pods. Today, I brought you one of the juicy ones. Scientists have a special name for juicy fruits: succulent. The word succulent comes from the Latin sucus, meaning “juice” — so a succulent fruit is simply a juicy one! 🍑🍇

🍎An apple is a special type of succulent fruit called a pome. The Latin word pomum meant any kind of fruit. Today, scientists use pome to describe a group of fruits that includes apples, pears, and other fruits. All pomes hide usually 5 seeds in a tough little core, protected by sweet, juicy flesh. 🍐

We’ve already discovered that each plant makes its own food in the process called photosynthesis—and some of that sweet food that plants make are stored in the fruit! After a flower is pollinated, its ovary begins to swell, fed by the sugars from the leaves. It grows, and grows, and grows… until it’s ripe. And when it’s ready, it begins calling out to animals, insects—and humans—with its color, scent, and sweetness: “Come taste me, and help my seeds travel!”

Here’s the apple I brought. It’s red, shiny, and juicy. It’s a succulent fruit. It’s a pome. It’s also something more…

Let’s cut it horizontally and see what happens. ✂️🍎And look—there it is! Something magical: a five-pointed star 🌟 hidden in the center. Inside each point of the star is a little seed, a promise of a future apple tree.

But here’s the surprising part: most of what we eat in an apple is not the ovary. It’s another part called the receptacle—the thick base of the flower that swelled up and surrounded the ovary. The ovary itself becomes the hard core in the center that we do not actually eat. The word receptacle comes from the Latin receptaculum, meaning “a storing place”—and what does it store? The most precious treasure of all: the core with the seeds.

Earlier, we discovered the position of the ovary in flowers. Apples have an inferior ovary, which means it sits below the other parts of the flower, and the receptacle grows up and around it, protecting it like a little vault..

🌍 But where did apples come from? Yes, from the apple tree. But.. I mean historically. Apples are very ancient. They’re thought to have first grown wild in the mountains in Central Asia. Over time, animals ate the fruit and spread the seeds far and wide. Birds, bears, and even horses carried apples across great distances, dropping seeds in their dung—nature’s perfect fertilizer.

Humans noticed the delicious fruit and began planting apples in their gardens, selecting the best ones to grow near their homes. Traders carried them along the Silk Road; apples traveled in ships, carts, and saddlebags, making their way across Europe, into Africa, and eventually to the Americas with explorers and settlers. 🍏⛵

People made juices from them, stored them for winter, cooked them in pies, and even used them as gifts of peace.🍎 In Norse legends, golden apples gave eternal youth. In Greek myths, they caused epic wars. ✨People all over the world love them!

But they hold another surprise … this wil schock you! Are you ready to hear it ?

🤯 Botanists say the apple is not a “true fruit”—it’s an accessory fruit with a surprise inside. 🌟 The word “accessory” comes from Latin accessorius, which means “something added on.”
What is the added thing? 👉 The receptacle—the thick base of the flower that grew up and around the ovary and we enjoy eating. But the real ovary? It’s the core, hidden at the center, holding the seeds. And because we eat the receptacle and not just the ovary, scientists call the apple an accessory fruit. 🍎

🍂 I wonder… What other accessory fruits we eat? Are they all related? Let's go, find, collect and disect more pomes. Do they all have a star inside with 5 seeds?

✏️ Follow-up Ideas for Exploration:

🔍 Investigate Pomes:
– Go on a pomes hunt! Find apples, pears, quinces
– Slice them horizontally and vertically—what do you see?
– Compare their stars and cores.

📖 Language work
– Write a story: “The Fruit with a Star at Its Heart That Isn’t a Fruit…”
– Create a botanical booklet or chart about pome structure. Make labels for ovary, core, receptacle, seed, and star

🎨 Art
– Draw pomes inside and out

🥣 Culinary Exploration:
– Research recipes and cook with pomes: bake an apple, stew a pear, try a quince jam
– Write a recipe card that celebrates the fruit that’s not a fruit

With Montessori joy,

Vanina 😊