Rose Family

Synonyms and common names

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• Subfamily Rosoideae: Many small fruits, each of which is an achene or drupelet, and often the fleshy part of the fruit (e.g. strawberry) is the hypanthium or the stalk bearing the carpels.
• Subfamily Spiraeoideae: A non-fleshy fruit consisting of five capsules.
• Subfamily Maloideae: Five capsules (called "cores") in a fleshy endocarp, surrounded by the ripened stem tissue. This structure is called a "pome". Apple, pear, quince, hawthorn.
• Subfamily Amygdaloideae (or Prunoideae): A single drupe with a seam, two veins next to the seam, and one vein opposite the seam. Peach, almond, cherry.

The rose is a rose
and was always a rose;
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
You, my love, are a rose,
but were always a rose.

- Robert Frost, "The Rose Family"

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References