fructification

Noun

fructification (countable and uncountable, plural fructifications)

1. The act of forming or producing fruit; the act of fructifying, or rendering productive of fruit; fecundation.
   • In nature, the wild hop is usually shadowed during its growing period by bushes and trees, and it is only those aboveground parts which are intensively illuminated which pass into fructification period.2012, V. Rybacek, Hop Production, page 104
   • Lucuma salicifolia (canistal) and Micropholis mexicana (wild apricot) are the most infested fruit species. They have a very short fructification period.2013, Martin Aluja, Fruit Flies: Biology and Management, page 384
2. The collective organs by which a plant produces its fruit, or seeds, or reproductive spores.
   • The fructification is liable to become very convex in age.1824, Robert Kaye Greville, Flora Edinensis: Or, A Description of Plants Growing Near Edinburgh, page 332
   • The essence of the fructification consists in the flower and the fruit.1836, William Paul Crillon Barton, Elements of Botany, page 89