Berry (botany) in fruit type may have led to the evolution of fruit eating in mammals and birds. Fruit type has been considered to be a useful character in classification and in understanding the phylogeny of plants. The evolution of fruits with a berry-like pericarp has been studied in a wide range of flowering plant families. Repeated transitions between fleshy and dry pericarps have been demonstrated regularly. One well-studied family is the Solanaceae, because of the commercial importance of fruit such as tomatoes, bell peppers, and eggplants or aubergines. Capsules, which are dry dehiscent fruits, appear to be the original form of
Fruit in which part or all of the "pericarp" (fruit wall) is fleshy at maturity are "simple fleshy fruits". Types of simple, fleshy, fruits (with examples) include: An aggregate fruit, or "etaerio", develops from a single flower with numerous simple pistils. The pome fruits of the family Rosaceae, (including apples, pears, rosehips, and saskatoon berry) are a syncarpous fleshy fruit, a simple fruit, developing from a half-inferior ovary. Schizocarp fruits form from a syncarpous ovary and do not really dehisce, but rather split into segments with one or more seeds; they include a number of different forms from a wide range