 Fragaria

Fragaria is the taxonomic genus of strawberries, in Rosaceae. Its familiar fleshy structure is an enlarged receptacle bearing many dry achenes. Each achene is a separate fruit enclosing a seed; the common receptacle is therefore anatomically distinct from the individual seed-bearing units. Kew recognizes Fragaria as a genus within Rosaceae.^[ref]

Fragaria vesca, the woodland strawberry, is a diploid experimental representative: its chromosomes occur in two sets. A 2013 study dissected five fruit tissue types at five developmental stages and used RNA sequencing to compare gene expression. Separating seed-associated tissues from the receptacle let the researchers ask which tissue might make a growth signal and which might respond to it.^[ref]

An instructive contrast is to compare a whole-fruit measurement with separate measurements of its achenes and flesh. An increase averaged over the whole structure could reflect a change within one tissue or simply a change in the proportions of tissues sampled. Anatomical dissection makes the biological meaning of a gene expression measurement more precise. Expression patterns suggest mechanisms to test; they do not by themselves prove movement of a hormone from one tissue to another.