Pineapple

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.