Question

why does a plant go to the considerable expense of growing fruit? what if anything do they gain from it? with the source of the information

Answer 1

The production of fruit in plants is energetically costly. It requires a lot of energy and many resources. But still a plant produces fruit. The most important reason is that, fruit contains seed and seed is the source of survival during unfavourable condition and continuation of generations.

Every plant undergoes sexual reproduction to ensure that the progeny it is forming is genetically different from the parent plant and also different from each other. The process of sexual reproduction ends with the development of a seed. The seed is one of the most important structure on the planet because it ensures continuation of generation. A seed may or may not fall near the parent plant, but upon germination, it gives rise to a plant. The plant reproduces again by the formation of flowers and ends the process of reproduction by forming a seed. In this way the cycle continuous and the seed is the main agent of continuation of this life cycle in plants.

The second most important thing about seed is that it is protects embryo inside the hard seed coat and endosperm is also present which is the nutritive tissue for embryo. The hard seed coat not only protect the embryo normally, but it is very useful during unfavourable conditions of heat, desiccation and cold. A seed can remain viable because of its hard seed coat upto thousands of years and can germinate when favourable conditions return.

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