A fruit tree is a tree bearing fruit that is consumed or used by people — all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovary of a flower containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term ’fruit tree’ is limited to those that provide fruit for human food. Types of fruits are described and defined elsewhere (see Fruit), but would include fruit in a culinary sense as well as some nut bearing trees, like walnuts.
The scientific study and the cultivation of fruits is called pomology, which divides fruits into groups based on plant morphology and anatomy. Some of those groups are: Pome fruits, which include apples and pears; and stone fruits which include peaches/nectarines, almonds, apricots, plums and cherries.
A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and wildlife.
Nuts are a composite of the seed and the fruit, where the fruit does not open to release the seed. Most seeds come from fruits, and the seeds are free of the fruit, unlike nuts like hazelnuts, hickories, chestnuts and acorns, which have a stony fruit wall and originate from a compound ovary. Culinary usage of the term is less restrictive, and some nuts as defined in food preparation, like pistachios and Brazil nuts, are not nuts in a biological sense. Everyday common usage of the term often refers to any hard walled, edible kernel, as a nut