User:Peter coxhead/Sandbox2

The term compound fruit has two distinct uses in botanical terminology:
 * 1) In the traditional English terminology for fruits, it is used as a general term for fruits not formed from the single ovary of a single flower; they may instead be formed from the compound (syncarpous) ovary of a single flower, from the separate (apocarpous) ovaries of a single flower or from a ovaries of a number of separate flowers.
 * 2) Since 1989, it is used by some botanists as an alternative term for "multiple fruit", meaning a fruit formed from the separate ovaries of a single flower.

Traditional terminology
In the traditional terminology used for fruit types in English, following Lindley (1831, 1832):
 * an aggregate fruit is one in which one flower contains several separate ovaries, which merge during development to form a single fruit
 * a multiple fruit is one in which several flowers each develop into small fruits that are clustered or fused together into a larger fruit.

Both kinds of fruit may be then be described as "compound" \ref the two entries in FNA Glossary\. In this general sense, a compound fruit is one "composed of two or more similar parts". The term can also be used for a simple fruit formed from a compound ovary.

Spjut & Thieret terminology
In 1989, Spjut and Thieret published a paper in which they reviewed the terminology used for aggregate and multiple fruits. They showed that Lindley in 1831 and 1832 had reversed the meaning of aggregate or composite fruits (compositi in Latin, agrégés or composés in French) and multiple fruits (multiplices in Latin, multiples in French) established by writers such as Gaertner and de Candolle. Botanists writing in English had generally followed Lindley, whereas those writing in French, German and other languages had generally continued with the original usage. Spjut and Thieret proposed to return to the original meanings of Gaertner, and use "multiple fruit" and "compound fruit" for what had been called "aggregate fruit" and "multiple fruit". Hence in this usage, a compound fruit is one formed by a single flower from more than one ovary.

The Spjut & Thieret terminology has been adopted by a number of sources, including The Kew Plant Glossary. The use of this terminology to describe a strawberry as a "multiple fruit" caused confusion in 1997.