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:
“I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens. As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Song of Solomon 2:1-3.
“Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.”
—Jean Paul Richter (1763–1825)
“And, shrilling from the solar course,
Or from fruit of chemic force,
Procession of a soul in matter,
Or the speeding change of water,
Or out of the good of evil born,
Came Uriel’s voice of cherub scorn,
And a blush tinged the upper sky,
And the gods shook, they knew not why.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)