Using the tool
Fruit and Seed Family ID aids in identification of fruits and seeds* to family. The first edition of this tool focused on monocotyledon families. The next edition, to be published in September 2024, includes all seed plant families.
Given the sparsity of gross-morphological traits for fruits and seeds, identifying the family will likely require narrowing down the possible families using the key and then reviewing the fact sheets to help determine the family.
Fruit and Seed Family ID contains:
- General information about fruit and seed characteristics.
- Key to monocot families: The interactive key is designed to provide users with an approachable set of traits, viewable with minimal magnification, that can be selected based on what they see in their unidentified specimen, to quickly narrow down the list of possible monocot families. A future edition will include a key for all seed plant families.
- Fact sheet index: For ease in finding a family, the index is divided by the monocotyledons, dicotyledons (includes basalbasal:
at or pertaining to the point of attachment; (of embryo) embryo occupies one end of the seed
angiosperms and eudicots), and gymnosperms.
- Fact sheets: Family fact sheets provide taxonomic information, detailed descriptions of fruits and seeds that typically occur in the plant family, images, and distribution information.The selection and recording of features and states relied on literature as well as morphological studies of fruit and seed samples in the U.S. National Seed Herbarium, housed at the U.S. National Arboretum, Washington, D.C. Because of the usually sparse quantitative and qualitative data on fruit and seed traits from literature and limited fruits and seeds sampled across a family, fact sheets provide the most commonly encountered traits. (If a description is lacking or in error, please contact itp@usda.gov. We greatly welcome your suggestions.)
Images and illustrations on the fact sheets exemplify the diversity of form when possible; however, because of limited access to some taxa, not all diversity is shown. In addition, since dried and fragmented material are most often encountered in a trade setting, we emphasized images of dried material rather than fresh. Images of fresh material are included, when possible, to aid in interpreting the images of dried material. (If you would like to contribute images, please contact itp@usda.gov.)
A link to the genera currently included in a family by GRIN-Global is provided under the Taxonomy topic. The number of genera and species cited on each fact sheet is based on Christenhusz and Byng (2016)Christenhusz and Byng (2016):
Christenhusz MJM and Byng JW. 2016. The number of known plant species in the world and its annual increase. Phytotaxa 261 (3): 201-217. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.261.3.1 and may differ slightly from the number of genera listed in GRIN-Global.
- Image gallery: The filterable gallery allows users to compare images by plant part, fruit type, color, and/or surface, providing a potentially quick match to the user’s specimen or to review many examples of a plant part or fruit type.
- Glossary: A glossary is included for both expert and non-expert users. Note, because the definition of some terms associated with describing fruits and seeds may differ between sources, please check the glossary to confirm how the term is used in this tool. We follow the Biodiversity Information Standards Floral Terminology.
- References: References reviewed for each family are cited on the family fact sheet with the full citation in the Reference section, except references added without modification from the Family Guide for Fruits and Seeds.
*Here we focus on fruits and seeds. Other propagating plant parts, such as spores or vegetative tissues, are not included.
