noun
definition
The outermost layer, or skin, of a ripe fruit or ovary.
definition
The outer layer of any thing.
Examples of pericarp in a Sentence
Sometimes the pericarp is membranous, sometimes hard, forming a nut, as in some genera of Bambuseae, while in other Bambuseae it becomes thick and fleshy, forming a berry often as large as an apple.
Fruit ofSporo- bolus, showing the dehiscent pericarp and seed.
The nuts are the fruit of the Bertholletia excelsa, one of the largest trees of the Amazon forest region, and are enclosed, sixteen to eighteen in number, in a hard, thick pericarp. Another nut-producing tree is the sapucaia (Lecythis ollaria), whose nuts are enclosed in a larger pericarp, and are considered to be better flavoured than those first described.
Commercial cubebs consist of the dried berries, usually with their stalks attached; the pericarp is greyish-brown, or blackish and wrinkled; and the seed, when present, is hard, white and oily.
Fruit after removal of one-half of the pericarp, showing the dark brown seed surrounded by the ruptured arillus.
When the fruit is collected the pericarp is first removed; then the arillus is carefully stripped off and dried, in which state it forms the mace of commerce.
The ovary ripens into a usually small ovoid or rounded fruit, which is entirely occupied by the single large seed, from which it is not to be distinguished, the thin pericarp being completely united to its surface.
In germination the coleorhiza lengthens, ruptures the pericarp, and fixes the grain to the ground by developing numerous hairs.
Development of larva and seed go on together, a few of the seeds serving as food for the insect, which when mature eats through the pericarp and drops to the ground, remaining dormant in its cocoon until the next season of flowering when it emerges as a moth.
Valonia, a material largely used by tanners, is the pericarp of an acorn obtained in the neighbouring oakwoods, and derives its name from Valona.
Meanwhile the ovary wall has developed to form the fruit or pericarp, the structure of which is closely associated with the manner of distribution of the seed.