In botany, a drupe is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp skin and mesocarp flesh) surrounds a shell (the pit or stone) of hardened endocarp, with a seed inside. These fruits are also called stone fruits and develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries. Plants that produce drupes include:
Drupes, with their sweet, fleshy outer layer, attract the attention of animals as a food, and the plant species benefits from the resulting dispersal of the seed, protected in an undigestible endocarp (pit or stone).
The coconut is also a drupe, but the mesocarp is fibrous or dry (called the husk), so this type of fruit is sometimes classified as a simple dry fruit, fibrous drupe.
A drupelet is one unit of an aggregate fruit which has essentially the structure of a drupe. Bramble fruits (for example, blackberry or raspberry) are aggregates of drupelets.