# Fructification

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'''Fructification''' ({{Langx|la|fructificatio}})<ref>{{cite web |title=Fructification: Significance and symbolism |url=https://www.wisdomlib.org/concept/fructification |website=wisdomlib.org |access-date=8 October 2025 |language=en |date=18 September 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=fructification - Idiom |url=https://getidiom.com/dictionary/english/fructification |website=getidiom.com |access-date=8 October 2025}}</ref> are the generative parts of the [plant](/source/plant) ([flower](/source/flower) and [fruit](/source/fruit)) (as opposed to its vegetative parts: [trunk](/source/trunk_(botany)), [root](/source/root)s and [leaves](/source/Leaf)). Sometimes it is applied more broadly to the generative parts of [gymnosperm](/source/gymnosperm)s, [fern](/source/fern)s, [horsetail](/source/horsetail)s, and [lycophytes](/source/Lycopodiophyta), though they produce neither fruit nor flower.

Since the works of [Andrea Caesalpino](/source/Andrea_Caesalpino) (1519–1603) the characters of fructification have been extensively used as a basis for the [scientific classification](/source/scientific_classification) of plants. [Carl Linnaeus](/source/Carl_Linnaeus) (1707–1778) raised the description of the parts of fructification to an unprecedented level of precision. He insisted that [genera](/source/genus) and the higher groups of plants must be characterised in terms of the fructification alone without using vegetative parts (which can be used only to characterise the [species](/source/species) within genera). At that time it was believed that all plants have flowers and fruits. It was not until the nineteenth century that the important difference between [seed](/source/seed)s and [spore](/source/spore)s was recognised and the use of terms flower and fruit was restricted to the flowering plants ([angiosperm](/source/angiosperm)s).

Later plant [taxonomists](/source/Taxonomy_(biology)) used a more balanced approach and re-introduced the use of the vegetative parts of the plant as a basis for characters at different levels of taxonomic [hierarchy](/source/hierarchy).

==See also==
* [Scientific classification](/source/Scientific_classification)

==References==
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Category:Plant morphology

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Fructification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructification) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructification?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.