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Bromeliaceae is the flowering-plant family containing the pineapple and plants such as Tillandsia usneoides, commonly called Spanish moss. The family includes ground-growing plants and epiphytes, which grow on other plants as supports. Those different habits illustrate why a family is an evolutionary classification rather than a single way of obtaining physical support.^[ref]

The pineapple supplies a distinctive reproductive example. Its multiple fruit develops from several flowers in an inflorescence. That familiar product helps identify one family member, but it should not be converted into a claim that every member of Bromeliaceae produces a pineapple-like edible structure.^[ref]

For an illustrative classification exercise, compare a ground-grown pineapple with an epiphyte attached to a branch. Recording habitat and support alone would separate them ecologically, while floral and inherited characters can place them in the same family. Conversely, two unrelated plants growing on branches do not become close relatives simply by sharing that habit.

The pineapple, Ananas comosus, is a perennial angiosperm in Bromeliaceae, cultivated for its conspicuous fleshy fruiting structure. The familiar edible object is a multiple fruit: it develops from the products of several flowers in one inflorescence, rather than from one large ovary.^{[ref] [ref]}

A useful examination starts with the repeated units on its surface. These reflect the organization of the earlier inflorescence. In the New York Botanical Garden's illustrated specimen, each flower is associated with a bract, and the floral ovary is inferior. The development of the whole mass therefore combines neighboring units and associated tissues.^[ref]

For an illustrative tracing exercise, label three adjacent flowers before fruit development and follow their contributions into the mature pineapple. They retain three floral origins even when the products become one apparent mass. This distinguishes a multiple fruit from an aggregate fruit, which starts from several separate carpels in a single flower.