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this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Explain Like I'm Five
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There are many fruits where individual seeds grow in their own juicy little pods. Think about pomegranates, passionfruits, and raspberries.
There are many fruits where several of these seed-pods are wrapped up together in a single container. Think about apples, passionfruits, and groundcherries (or tomatillos).
Citrus fruits have been heavily bred by humans for a long time, and so they don't make a lot of sense as wild plants — because they're not.
Additional fun fact based on this: the colour name "orange" in English is named after the fruit. But we only have evidence of the English word "orange" for the fruit from the 13th century, even though the fruit was known to the Chinese c.300BC because it's a human creation - a mix of pomelo and mandarin.
Before we used "orange" to describe the colour it was called "yellow-red", which is accurate but underwhelming and not very catchy.
The history of colour name "pink" is only from the 17th century, even more recent. It never fails to blow my mind how categories and names have colour have changed over time and cultures.
the word 'crog' was also used to refer to general shades of orange before we took the name from the fruit
Here in the Netherlands they're referred to as sinaasappels (Chinese apples) however the color orange is still referred to as oranje. Seems silly to me.
Oh, and TIL where the German word Apfelsine is coming from.
Citrus fruits are actually pretty unique as the non-bred, ancestral fruits are still around and popular, mandarin oranges and pomelos. Which still have the lobed structure OP is talking about.