Mayapple Bud or Fruit?

Just after May, this was a Mayapple I saw in early June. Mayapple's weird lobes on a pair of stems, growing low to the ground, and being at their best before a lot of plants have recovered from winter makes that part of the identification easy. A trickier discussion is about the green orb growing off it. There are pretty much 2 possibilities:

  1. This could be the unopened bud of what will be a Mayapple flower.
  2. Or it could be the unripe fruit that a Mayapple produces from a fertilized flower.
Visually I kind of like it as a fruit due to its smooth and shiny green appearance. Pictures I've seen of the buds are a little less smooth without a shine to them, though admittedly it was a pretty small sample size.

Seasonally though, I think it's more likely to be a Mayapple bud. I'd generally expect to see buds in May and fruits in July, and June 3 is a lot closer to May than to July. I also believe that Mayapple flowers are more numerous than Mayapple fruits since Mayapples don't produce much in the way of nectar and thus a fair number of flowers go unfertilized. (Unfertilized flowers won't produce fruit.)

Ultimately though I'd probably need a better picture of the bud/fruit to have a better chance of figuring this out.

June 3, 2023 at John Clyde Native Grassland Preserve
Photo 300858485, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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