In botany, a follicle is a
dry unilocular fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...
formed from one
carpel, containing two or more seeds. It is usually defined as
dehiscing by a suture in order to release seeds,
for example in ''
Consolida'' (some of the larkspurs),
peony
The peony or paeony () is any flowering plant in the genus ''Paeonia'', the only genus in the family Paeoniaceae. Peonies are native to Asia, Europe, and Western North America. Scientists differ on the number of species that can be distinguish ...
and
milkweed (''Asclepias'').
Some difficult cases exist however, so that the term indehiscent follicle is sometimes used, for example with the genus ''
Filipendula'', which has indehiscent fruits that could be considered intermediate between a (dehiscent) follicle and an (indehiscent)
achene.
An
aggregate fruit that consists of follicles may be called a follicetum. Examples include
hellebore
Commonly known as hellebores (), the Eurasian genus ''Helleborus'' consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants in the family (biology), family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave i ...
,
aconite, ''
Delphinium
''Delphinium'' is a genus of about 300 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the family (biology), family Ranunculaceae, native species, native throughout the Northern Hemisphere and also on the high mountains of tropical Africa. T ...
'', ''
Aquilegia'' or the family
Crassulaceae, where several follicles occur in a whorl on a shortened
receptacle, or ''
Magnolia'', which has many follicles arranged in a spiral on an elongated receptacle.
The follicles of some species dehisce by the ventral suture (as in ''
Banksia''), or by the dorsal suture (as in ''Magnolia'').
[Kapil, R. N. and N. N. Bhandari (1964]
Morphology and embryology of ''Magnolia''
. Proc. nat. Inst. Sci. India 30, 245–262.
File:Follicles of Helleborus foetidus.JPG, Follicles from '' Helleborus foetidus''
File:Banksia integrifolia and marginata cones.jpg, Only some flowers in a '' Banksia'' inflorescence mature into follicles embedded in the "cone"
File:Stenocarpus sinuatus, vrugte, Manie van der Schijff BT.jpg, Follicles of '' Stenocarpus sinuatus'' will release papery brown seeds
References
External links
*
Fruit morphology
{{Plant-morphology-stub