Pineapple Morphology

Ananas comosusis a herbaceous perennial of the Liliopsidae (monocotyledonous), whose terminal inflorescence gives origin to a multiple fruit known as sorose. After maturation of the first fruit, the plant develops new shoots from axillary buds, so producing new growth axes capable of producing another fruit. The same plant may thus give a chain of various production cycles. In most commercial plantings, the plants are not allowed to produce more than two to three crops, after two or three fruiting cycle there is reduction in fruit size and homogeny. Then a new plantation must be frequently established. This may be done with the same lateral shoots of the preceding crop, or with other vegetative propagates, such as the fruit crown, or, in many cultivars, slips produced along the peduncle. This vegetative reproduction is also dominant in wild pineapples, where, in addition to lateral shoots, the crown and slips give to propagation as they resume rapid growth at fruit maturity. The long peduncle then bends because of this mass and the crowns and slips reach the ground and may root. Thus most natural populations appear to consist of a single clone, expanding as if propagating by stolons.

The adult plant is 1–2 m high and 1–2 m wide, and it is inscribed in the general shape of a spinning top. The main morphological structures to be distinguished are the stem, the leaves, the peduncle, the multiple fruit or syncarp, the crown, the shoots and the roots. The following description is mainly focused on the cultivated pineapple. It is partly based on the anatomical studies of Krauss (1948, 1949a,b) and Okimoto (1948)

Reference:

Krauss, B.H. (1948) Anatomy of the vegetative organs of the pineapple Ananas comosus(L.) Merr. I. Introduction, organography, the stem and the lateral branch or axillary buds. Botanical Gazette110, 159–217.

Krauss, B.H. (1949a) Anatomy of the vegetative organs of the pineapple, Ananas comosus(L.) Merr. II. The leaf. Botanical Gazette110, 333–404.

Krauss, B.H. (1949b) Anatomy of the vegetative organs of the pineapple, Ananas comosus(L.) Merr. – concluded. III. The root and the cork. Botanical Gazette110, 550–587.

Okimoto, M.C. (1948) Anatomy and histology of the pineapple inflorescence and fruit. Botanical Gazette 110, 217–231.