Yesterday, while having lunch, my son and I were sharing an orange. He toyed around with the seeds and as expected, threw me one of his unending questions again:

❓Question of the Day: Mommy, Why Do Fruits Have Seeds?

So I thought, we should start by getting to know more about seeds and fruits...

Seeds are baby plants!

Seeds are a part of the plant which can grow into new plants. There are 3 basic parts of a seed:
(1) an embryo - the baby plant
(2) endosperm which supplies nutrients to the embryo, and
(3) the seed coat which covers and protects the other parts of the seed.

_Image

Fruits are part of a flowering plant that contains a seed. Fruits, apart from giving us tasty and nutritious food, are also a means by which more plants will grow.

_Image

All fruits grow from flowers. However, not all flowers will become fruits. A fruit is the mature or ripened ovary of the flower.

🌱 Plants normally start their lives from seeds which germinate and then grow into a plant/tree.

🌳 The plant grows, matures and eventually bear flowers.

🌻 The flowers are pollinated, either by insects (or other animals) or the wind. This is the first stage of plant reproduction.
Pollination is when the pollen produced on the the anther of a flower moves to the stigma.

🌺 The fertilization of the flower occurs when the male ‘gametes’ pass from the pollen grain along the tube to the ovary, where they join with female gametes in the ovules.

🍎Once an ovule has been fertilized, it becomes a seed. The ovary wall later develops into a fruit that protects the seed.

_Image

Humans or animals eat fruits, thereby also move seeds around. If the seeds land on a good soil, it may germinate and grow into a new plant. Some seeds need light, most need darkness in order to germinate. Under the right conditions, the embryo inside the seed will grow and push out of the seed coat. Tiny leaves will appear and sprout above the soil.

---

---

Resources:

Seeds
Fruits: The Part of the Plants Where Seeds Grow
What is a Fruit, its Types and Characteristics?
The Life Cycle of Flowering Plants
Cover Image: google search, edited.

---

---

I try my best to give answers to my son's questions and sometimes even provoke him to ask more. Though challenging, it also gives me a sense of fulfillment to be able to feed my child's brain with information that he is hungry for.

His questions also give me a chance to revisit the facts which I have learned in school many years ago so I have him to thank for too.

I hope that through his curiosity, we are also able to impart some information to the steemit community.

Previously: ❓Question of the Day: How Does Our Brain Look Like?

_{Credits to @elyaque for the followers and reputation badges, @merej99 for the Community Engagement Badge. Want your own Homesteading, Gardening, Beekeepers, Woodworkers, Dads, Moms, Food Preservers, Preppers badge? Contact @daddykirbs}