Morphological and taxonomic overview of fruits in representatives of subclass Caryophyllidae in the flora of Ukraine

Subclass Caryophyllidae is a paraphyletic group among the clade of superasterids; its taxonomic circumscription has undergone major changes due to molecular phylogenetic results. The present study is aimed at analyzing the available information on the morphological diversity of fruits and the gynoecium structure in representatives of this subclass in the Ukrainian flora. Three basic fruit types are recognized in Caryophyllidae: capsular, berry-like, and one-seeded fruits. In the annotated list of morphological fruit types, the characteristics and morphological diversity of fruits according to different sources are reported for each family. The occurrence of apocarpous fruits, inferior fruits, and placentation types are analyzed, as also the functional types of fruits adapted to autochory, ballistochory, anemochory, and ornithochory. The carpological spectrum of basic fruit types at the levels of family, genus, and species demonstrates the widespread occurrence of capsular and one-seeded fruits (with a slighlt predominance of one-seeded fruits at the species level), while only four species have berry-like fruits.