Classification
- Kingdom – Plantae
- Division – Angiospermae
- Class – Dicotyledonae
- Order – Sapindales
- Family – Anacardiaceae
- Genus – Mangifera
- Species – Mangifera indica
Important points
- Mango is a member of the Anacardiaceae family of angiosperms.
- The inflorescence of mango produces both unisexual and bisexual flowers; hence, it is called a polygamous plant.
- The fruits produced by mango belong to the drupe fruits (fleshy fruits).
- The edible part of the mango fruit is the fleshy mesocarp, but the characteristic feature of drupe fruits is the presence of a stony endocarp and a single seed.
The mango fruit (drupe)
- A drupe develops from a monocarpellary, superior ovary and is one-seeded.
- In mango, the fruit wall (pericarp) is clearly differentiated into three layers:
- Epicarp – the outer, thin skin.
- Mesocarp – the middle, fleshy and juicy layer, which is the edible part.
- Endocarp – the inner, stony and hard layer, which encloses the single seed.
Mango and coconut are NCERT’s two examples of drupes. In mango, the edible part is the fleshy mesocarp; in coconut, the mesocarp is fibrous, and the edible parts are the endosperm (coconut water and kernel).
Other features of the mango plant
- Habit – a large, evergreen tree.
- Root – a deep tap root system, as in most dicots.
- Leaves – simple leaves with unicostate (pinnate) reticulate venation, i.e. a single prominent midrib with veinlets forming a network.
- Chromosome number – 2n = 40.
Mango in other NEET topics
- Polyembryony – the seeds of many varieties of mango contain more than one embryo. The extra embryos develop from the nucellar cells of the ovule without fertilisation, so they are genetically identical to the parent. NCERT gives citrus and mango as examples.
- Apomixis – the formation of seeds without fertilisation. The nucellar embryos of mango are a form of apomixis.
Nucellar embryos are diploid (they come from the parent’s nucellus), and they form without fertilisation. This makes them useful in horticulture for producing plants that are true copies of a good parent variety.