Stone fruit

Peach and peach pits

A stone fruit, also called a drupe, is a fruit with a large "stone" inside. The stone is sometimes called the seed, but that is a mistake, as the seed is inside the stone. The stones can also be called a pit. These fruits are edible and used frequently in cooking.

Identification

What makes a fruit?

A fruit is the matured ovary of a flower. Fruits consist of two main parts: the pericarp, or ovary wall, and the seed(s).

The pericarp has three layers: the exocarp (skin/rind), the mesocarp (bulk of the pericarp), and the endocarp (innermost layer).

Berries vs. drupes

The two main classes of fleshy fruits are berries and drupes, or stone fruits.

Berries have a fleshy mesocarp and endocarp, and may have multiple seeds.

Drupes have a fleshy mesocarp, but a tough endocarp, and of course, a "stone" or "pit" at its center. Drupes typically have only a single seed.

Examples of stone fruits

Stone Fruits

	Scientific name	Description	What's the pit?	In pop culture
Apricots	Prunus armeniaca			St. Ives' Apricot Scrub Stardew Valley
Apriums		apricot/plum hybrid
Blackberries	Rubus			BlackBerry Blackberry (Watership Down), a fictional rabbit Blackberri, American singer-songwriter and community activist Wren Blackberry, children's fiction author "Blackberry" (song), by the Black Crowes "Blackberry Way", by The Move "Blackberry Blossom" (tune), a traditional fiddle tune
Cherries				cherry pie Stardew Valley I Kissed a Girl cherry ChapStick
Coconuts				Coconut Mall Animal Crossing Stardew Valley
Dates
Green almonds		the fruit of an almond tree, containing the pit or "nut" commonly referred to as an almond		almond butter
Lychees
Mangoes	Mangifera indica			The House on Mango Street the mango emoji
Marionberries		a cultivar of blackberries		Marionberry pancakes in Portlandia
Mulberries	Morus			Mulberry Tree, a painting by Vincent Van Gogh A Babylonian etiological myth, explored by Ovid in Metamorphoses, attributes the red color of mulberries to the deaths of Pyramus and Thisbe, a pair of ill-fated lovers
Nectarines	Prunus persica var. nucipersica
Olives	Olea europaea			Olive, the Other Reindeer olive oil
Peaches	Prunus persica		Peach pit	Princess Peach, fictional character from the Mario franchise The peach emoji James and the Giant Peach Peaches, a mammoth from the Ice Age franchise voiced by Keke Palmer Animal Crossing Stardew Valley The Daring Book for Girls by Miriam Peskowitz contains instructions to create a peach pit ring Peach-Pit
Plums	prunus domestica			Sugar Plum Fairy Stardew Valley
Pluots		plum/apricot hybrid
Raspberry
Salmonberry	rubus spectabilis