Fruit
The fruit is a smooth (glabrous) olive-like drupe which varies in shape from elongate oval to nearly roundish, and when ripe are 1.4–2.8 centimetres (0.55–1.1 in) by 1.0–1.5 centimetres (0.39–0.59 in). The fruit skin (exocarp) is thin and the bitter-sweet pulp (mesocarp) is yellowish-white and very fibrous. The mesocarp is 0.3–0.5 centimetre (0.12–0.20 in) thick. The white, hard inner shell (endocarp) of the fruit encloses one, rarely two or three, elongated seeds (kernels) having a brown seed coat.
The neem tree is very similar in appearance to its relative, the Chinaberry (Melia azedarach). The Chinaberry tree is toxic to most animals, especially to fish, but birds are known to gorge themselves on the Chinaberries, the seeds passing harmlessly through their unique digestive systems.
Read more about this topic: Azadirachta Indica
Famous quotes containing the word fruit:
“The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbored by fruit of baser quality.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days.... Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)