Background

Recently, pomegranate has established itself as a functional food of increasing interest, both economically and within the scientific community, which has generated a significant increase in publications focused mainly on its characteristics, benefits, and nutritional composition.

Scope and approach

However, despite those papers maintaining scientific rigor, failures and/or errors of interpretation are evidenced concerning basic botanical concepts regarding the pomegranate fruit. Given this, and as a way of contributing to the homogenization of knowledge, this short communication defines the concepts of “seed”, “aril”, and “testa” as specifically applied to the pomegranate fruit by recovering historical botanical publications.

Key findings and conclusions

The literature studied showed incorrect usage of botanical terms regarding pomegranate parts. The pomegranate seed is the whole grain. It is composed of sarcotesta, sclerotized mesotesta, tegmen, nucela, and embryo with cotyledons, and constitutes the edible portion of this complex fruit called balausta. The whole pomegranate seed cannot be called aril, because it is exariled or without aril seed.

中文翻译：

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石榴（Punica granatum L.）带有果肉种子的干果皮果实

背景

近来，石榴在经济上和在科学界内部已成为人们越来越感兴趣的功能性食品，这大大增加了出版物的出版，主要集中在石榴的特性，益处和营养成分上。

范围和方法

然而，尽管那些论文保持了科学上的严格性，但仍证明了关于石榴果实的基本植物学概念的解释的失败和/或错误。鉴于此，并作为促进知识均质化的一种方式，这种简短的交流定义了“种子”，“阿里尔”和“种皮”的概念，这些概念通过恢复历史上的植物学出版物而专门应用于石榴果实。

主要发现和结论

研究的文献显示有关石榴部位的植物性术语使用不正确。石榴籽是全谷物。它由肉食动物，硬化的mesotesta，tegmen，nucela和带有子叶的胚组成，并构成了这种称为balausta的复杂水果的可食用部分。整个石榴籽不能被称为假种皮，因为它是经过检验的或没有假种皮的种子。