Drupes, Pods and Pomes

I went out in search of berries this morning, at the suggestion of Lisa from Greenbow Gardens.

In my search around the garden, I found some other 'seed carrying vessels' of interest.

These are dry drupes on my Carolina Silverbell, Halesia carolina 'Arnold Pink' .

Most drupes have a fleshy skin, like cherries, plums, and peaches. Usually there is just one seed inside, but there may be two or three seeds inside these dry drupes.

"Dry drupes".

I bet you didn't think you would be reading a sentence today with those two words combined in it! It sounds like what you might call someone to insult them... "you dry drupe, you, why I oughta ..."

Then I found these pods on my red bud tree, Cercis canadensis.This is a sure sign to me that this tree is in the pea family.

My neighbor has these crabapples all over her crabapple tree. These are technically called pome fruits.

Here are some much smaller pome fruits on my crabapple tree, Malus 'Guinevere'.The birds will eat these in no time.

I also looked for some pome fruits on my Serviceberry, but the birds had already eaten all of them. I wonder why they don't they call it a Servicepome?

These "seed carrying vessels" are on the Lily of the Valley, Convallaria majalis.I squeezed one and it had one seed inside and was all gushy. I think it must be a drupe. It's also quite poisonous. Yes, it's a poisoinous drupe in my garden.

Finally, I arrived back to nearly where I started and found my beautyberry shrubs, Callicarpa dichotoma 'Issai' .I assume these are true berries, but you never know!