Question

Many carpels are free and each carpel of apocarpous gynoecium develops into a fruitler in
a. Oryza sativa
b. Acacia Arabica
c. Annona squamosa
d. Vitis vinifera

Answer 1

Hint: Apocarpous gynoecium is a term used for a set of many pistils which consists only of one carpel. The fruit that is obtained from simple pistils is called a follicle and such phenomena are observed in primitive families as Magnoliaceae or Ranunculaceae.

Complete answer:
The female reproductive part of the flower is known as gynoecium. This gynoecium contains one or more carpels which develop into a fruit. If a gynoecium has a single carpel, it is called monocarpous and if the gynoecium has multiple, free and unfused carpels it is called apocarpous.

There are some fruits like Annona squamosa, the margins of the carpels are fused and the mesocarp of berries is edible. Aggregate and soft fruits of Annona squamosa form from numerous and loosely united pistils of a flower which become large and become fruit called sugar-apples which is different from fruits of other species of genus. Fruit is formed from free carpels which have ripened pistils. Each carpel has a shiny, oblong, shiny and smooth, dark brown to black in color of seed which is 1.3 centimeters to 1.6 centimeters long. Annona squamosa is native to tropical Americas and West Indies. It is small, semi-deciduous, with a lot of branched shrubs or small trees of 3 to 8 metres of height.

Hence, the correct answer is option (C).

Note: Annona squamosa is a well branched, small tree or shrub which belongs to the family Annonaceae. It can tolerate tropical lowland climates better than other species making it widely cultivated compared to other species.