"The avocado both looks and feels strangely overbuilt: its flesh is abundant, and its seeds are enormous. In fact, its proportions seem fundamentally mismatched to the modern world. There aren’t any animals alive today that are known to swallow the fruit whole; by extension, there are no animals that could disperse its seed effectively. Yet, having slip through evolutionary cracks, the fruit still persists. It’s globally cultivated and culturally beloved, but biologically speaking, it’s somewhat puzzling."
Saw a vid the other day about osage orange trees and the large green fruits they make. Similar story in that megafauna ate the fruit and distributed the seeds, now that they're gone the trees are becoming rare. Osage orange was used in the making of archery bows by native Americans, exceptionally tough and strong wood.
ReplyDeleteI first saw Osage Oranges a couple years ago in Kansas.
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